Everybody Has Secrets
by LittleMiss543
Summary: Set after the season 5 finale, what happens after the flat-line? Focused on mer/der and mer/christina/izzie/alex/george friendship. Full summary inside, please read...
1. Chapter 1 After The FlatLine

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything of Grey's Anatomy, but I do own the box sets.**

**So this is set after the season 5 finale of Grey's when both George and Izzie flat-line. How will the staff of Seattle Grace Hospital cope with the aftermath of what happens? Will their lives go back to normal? All characters and pairings are in from season 5, mainly focused on Mer/Der and Mer/Christina/Alex/Izzie/George friendship. **

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Everyone in the room sighed as they failed to revive the patient. The doctor looked up at the clock as he put down the scalpel onto the tray beside him.

"Time of death, 5:29 pm," he sighed as he walked out of the room. His heart ached knowing that he'd have to be the one to tell the patient's friends and family the bad news.

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Everybody sighed as the sound of a steady heartbeat filled the room.

"Thank god," she whispered to herself, she didn't know if she could handle loosing the patient. They had grown so close over the years. Tears of happiness were filing in everyone's eyes. The patient's eyes slowly began to flutter open again.

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She stayed by his side while the nurse's tidied up the OR and sewed him back up. Tears were pouring down her face as she kissed his hand. She couldn't believe that he had actually died, she couldn't believe that she had spent the entire day with him and not known that it was him. He was her best friend for god's sake; he was part of their family.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry George," she whispered as she wiped the tears away with her free hand. Her other hand was still holding his hand just like she had been doing all through surgery. She didn't want to let him go, not just yet.

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As she opened her eyes she slowly looked around the room, she was surrounded by Bailey, Christina, Alex and the Chief. Alex rushed over to kiss the top of her head as soon as he realised she had woken up.

"Welcome back Dr. Stevens," said Richard standing at the end of the bed. She smiled weakly at them.

"You gave us quite a scare there, Stevens. Better not do it again," joked Bailey who was standing by the right of her bed.

"Meredith? George?" she asked. They all knew what she meant but she was too tired to talk for too long. Alex and Christina looked at Bailey and Richard not knowing what to say to her. Not knowing how to tell her that her best friend had been hit by a bus.

"O'Malley was in an accident this morning, he's just gone into surgery with Grey," said Bailey. Izzie looked sad as her eyes filled with tears threatening to spill. She couldn't say anything so she just nodded her head. Alex kissed the top of her head again and everyone went silent.

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**Okay, so now I'm going to go and hide so that people don't kill me. Just remember its Grey's Anatomy – there can't e two happy endings! I know this chapter is only short but they will get longer. **

**Thanks for reading and please R&R**

**LittleMiss x**


	2. Chapter 2 Phone Calls Change Everthing

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything of Grey's Anatomy only the box sets :( **

**I know people probably want to kill me after the first chapter but please stay with it. Everybody had more funny and memorable moments with George – you'll find out why that's important later in the story. **

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Derek watched her through the window as he was scrubbing out with Owen. They stood staring in silence just the sound of running water filling the room. They watched as tears fell from her face, it was only her and George left in the room now as the nurses had left minutes before. She was talking to him which was inaudible to them.

"You think she's going to be alright?" asked Owen as he shook his hands to dry them before reaching for a towel.

"You want the truth... I don't think any of them will be alright," he said as he dried his hands with a towel. They looked back at Meredith who still hadn't let go of his hands. "Now I have the task of getting her to let go of his hand and come with me to tell her friends." Owen nodded, he was glad that it wasn't him who had to do it because they both knew that if she didn't want to do something it would be one hard fight to get her to do it. It was the same with everyone from their little family of Christina, Alex, Izzie, Meredith and George. They watched as she suddenly dropped to the floor and rushed in to see if she was okay.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry George," she whispered to his lifeless body. One minute she was standing watching him the next she felt her legs collapse under her and she fell to the ground. It felt nice. It was hard but it was cold and she liked that, now she knew why Izzie laid wanted to lay on the bathroom floor almost three years ago.

She knelt on the floor for what seemed like minutes when she felt a pair of arms reach around her.

"Meredith? Honey are you okay?" asked Derek worriedly. She leant into him and cried more not bothering to open her eyes and look around. She knew someone else had also come into the room but she didn't care anymore.

"He's gone," she sobbed into his chest.

"I know baby, I know. Everything will be all right. Sshh, calm down, just breathe," he whispered into her ear soothing her. He rubbed her back in circles to try and calm her down but nothing seemed to be working. After a few more minutes the crying stopped and she stood up again. Derek stood up after her and rubbed her shoulder. "You okay?" She nodded her head and wiped her eyes as she kissed George on the top of the head.

"Bye George," she whispered before turning around to face Derek and Owen. "I'm gonna go... Erm... I'm gonna go call him mum... To tell her that... Yeah, I'm gonna call his mum," she said walking towards the door.

"Are you sure? Because I could do it if you want."

"No, it's okay. I'll do it, I'm fine. I'll meet you in Izzie's room, you can tell them." Derek nodded and watched as she left the OR. She quickly washed her hands and then headed for the nearest on call room where she would have some privacy to call Mrs O'Malley.

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She had been standing in the on-call room for about ten minutes just holding her phone. How could she just ring up a family and tell them that their son was dead, especially George's family. She sat on the edge of the bed and slowly dialled Louise O'Malley's number.

"_Hello, Louise O'Malley speaking,"_ Louise said on the other end. After no reply she spoke again. _"Hello? Is anyone there?"_

"Erm yeah sorry, this is Dr. Grey. Meredith Grey one of George's friends," she said nervously down the phone trying to act professional.

"_Oh yes, Meredith. How are you dear?"_ she asked softly. Meredith hated it; this woman was so friendly and nice. She didn't know that in a few seconds her whole life would be turned upside down. Again.

"I'm so sorry, I am really really sorry," she said as she began crying.

"_Honey, what's the matter?"_

"It's George, he was in an accident, erm, he got hit by a bus. I'm sorry he didn't make it. He flat-lined during surgery and we couldn't revive him, I'm so sorry we did everything we could." She heard her gasp down the phone and there was silence for a moment as the phone was passed onto someone else.

"Hello, this is Jerry."

"Jerry, I'm really sorry. George was hot by a bus and he didn't make it."

"Okay, erm, is it okay if we come down there? I mean, come and see him. Say goodbye," he said trying not to cry but to keep strong in front of his mother. He had matured since Meredith had last heard from him which was when their dad had died. And now George had died too.

"Yeah, yes, that's fine. If you just come down to Seattle Grace Hospital, fifth floor. If you ask for me at the nurse's station I'll take you to see him."

"Thank you, we'll be down there for tomorrow afternoon," he said as he hung up the phone. Meredith sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. Tomorrow. George's family would be here tomorrow, what would she say to them, what _could _she say to them to make them feel any better. She would have to tell them about the accident and they would be able to see it for themselves.

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Derek and Owen walked cautiously walked into Izzie's room and were shocked to see Alex sat by her beside still in tears, Christina putting the paddle's back, Bailey and Chief. As they entered they all looked at them knowing they had news on George's surgery. Derek let the last remaining nurse wheel the crash cart out before starting.

"How was the surgery, you're out quick," asked Christina wanting to know the truth but also knowing that they were about to say something bad because the surgery hadn't taken long, if there was a surgery at all. They were all thinking the same.

"George, he, erm, the damage was too extensive. There was nothing more we could do; he flat-lined as I was removing the bleed. I'm sorry, we couldn't revive him," he said calmly trying to hide his own emotions because he too was upset that George had died. He was finally starting to make friendships with all of Meredith's friends even though they hated him for breaking her. Izzie buried her head in Alex chest and began to cry as she heard the news while Bailey and Richard sighed and looked to the floor. Christina sunk into one of the chairs and stared into thin air.

"Where's Grey?" asked Bailey looking up at Derek.

"She went to call George's family," he replied. He knew he shouldn't have let her do it, it would just make things worse but how could he have stopped her? Bailey nodded her head and looked back towards the floor but Christina stood up and wacked Derek on the arm.

"You idiot," she snapped. Derek rubbed his arm as she put her head in her hands.

"Dr. Yang," yelled Richard, surprised at what she had just done.

"NO!" she yelled blinking back tears, Christina Yang never cried but this was an exception her friend had just died and now her person was breaking down. They all were. "You just let Meredith ring George's family. You didn't bring her straight here or go with her. You let her go _alone _to phone George's family."

"What are you getting at Yang?" asked Bailey. Christina ignored her and carried on.

"_You _let _her_ go _alone _to ring George's family. _The _Meredith Grey that we all know runs from her problems, runs when things are too tough for her to handle. This is tough." She took deep breaths as she finished yelling. Derek looked at her shocked but knew she was right.

"Maybe she's still ringing them," said Richard trying to reduce the tension in the room. Christina laughed and shook her head. After a few minutes of silence the room was still filled with tension, everyone looked around as the door opened hoping that it was Meredith. They all sighed as Olivia walked into the room.

"Dr. Shepherd, Dr. Grey wanted to let you know that George O'Malley's family should be here tomorrow afternoon," she said to Derek not wanting to look around. The tension in the room made her nervous.

"Damn," sighed Derek, Olivia looked at him confused. "Sorry. Do you know why she didn't tell me this herself?" Olivia shook her head.

"No, I'm sorry. She just said she had to find someone first and then she walked off." Derek sighed.

"Thank you."

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Meredith stood outside Izzie's room wondering whether or not to go inside. It had been thirty minutes since she had told Olivia to tell Derek about George's family. She slowly opened the door to Izzie's room and walked in. Inside Alex was still sat on the bed next to Izzie, Christina was sat in one of the chairs, Bailey was checking Izzie's vitals, Richard was stood in the corner and Derek was sat in one of the other chairs with his head in his hands. Owen had left twenty minutes earlier to help fetch in a trauma.

"So, nobody knows where she could have gone?" asked Richard again. Christina shook her head for what felt like the hundredth time. She looked up and saw Meredith at the doorway.

"Where the hell have you been? We've been worried sick," she yelled but she was glad that her person was okay. Meredith shut the door and shrugged her shoulders.

"I had to do something, it was nothing. Sorry," she murmured walking over to Derek. She sat down on his lap and buried her head in his chest hoping that people would leave her alone. Christina looked as if she was going to respond but Derek shook his head asking her not to. He kissed the top of her head and began stroking her head knowing that she was silently crying herself to sleep.

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**Thanks for reading this chapter, I'll try and write the next one soon but I've got exams coming up so I'm stuck revising them lol **

**Please R&R.**

**LittleMiss x**


	3. Chapter 3 Party Secret

**Disclaimer: I only own the Grey's Anatomy box sets – that's all :( **

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Meredith woke up shaking, she was sweating and tears were running down her face. Her eyes shot open and she saw that Christina, Alex, Izzie, Richard and Bailey were staring at her. Derek was rubbing her back and shushing her trying to calm her down.

"Sshh, baby, it's okay, it was just a bad dream, that's all, you're okay now," he said as she put her head in his chest. She wanted to close her eyes so that she couldn't see everyone staring at her but she knew if she did the 'dream' would come back. It wasn't a dream; it was more like a memory. It was a really bad memory from when she was about fifteen years old.

"Whoa, whoever you were yelling at really got it good," joked Alex trying to ease the tension in the room. Meredith sighed as she sat up.

"You want to talk about it?" asked Derek softly.

"No, it was nothing. Just... nothing, something that happened a really long time ago," she said not making eye contact with anyone especially not Richard, he was part of the 'dream' and she knew he knew he was. She glanced at her watch and stood up fully. "I'm going to go shower, George's family should be here in a few hours." She walked over to the door and turned back before leaving. "I love you." She left the room leaving everyone shocked by what she had just but it made Derek get a fuzzy feeling inside. Meredith, his Meredith had just said she loved him.

"You think she's okay? What the hell was that dream about?" asked Christina worried once again about her person.

"Like she said something that happened a long time ago," said Richard considering whether or not to tell them about what she had dreamt about. He knew that Meredith should be the one to tell them but he also knew that that would never happen.

"What do you mean?" "How do you know?" Both questions were asked at the same time by Izzie and Christina. Derek looked puzzled, how _did _Richard know about what Meredith had dreamt about.

"She was yelling at me. In her dream, I was the one she was yelling at. It was about seventeen years ago," he said calmly still unsure to whether he should tell them or not.

"What do you mean? Wait that means she would have been about... what? ... fifteen? I thought she lived in Boston in her childhood since she was five, how did you know her then?" asked Derek his head filling with questions much like everyone else's.

"When Meredith was about fifteen she moved back to Seattle with her mum for about two years. I was doing my fellowship but I had come back to Seattle for the weekend to visit family. I saw that there were lights on in their old house and I knew that they were home." He knew that Ellis would have never rented the house to people or sold it, strangely the house meant something to her but no one really knew what. "I went up the drive and saw that there was a party going on."

"Wait, how did you know that Ellis had moved back to Seattle, she could have sold the house or anything," asked Izzie intrigued by the story.

"Ellis would have never sold that house. Anyway I went in and it was just a bunch of kids really about sixteen to eighteen year old, maybe older."

_He walked into the hallway which was full of kids drinking different types of alcohol. Music was blasting out from one of the rooms, he decided to walk into the room and he saw Meredith sat on the floor drinking a bottle of tequila. He walked over to her with his strict and angry face on, she looked up and smiled at him. _

"_What the hell is all of this?" he yelled so that his voice would be heard over the music. _

"_A party, you want a drink?" she asked lifting up the bottle offering him some. He took the bottle off of her and put it down on the table. He shook his head, he couldn't believe what had become of the funny little girl he had once known. As he turned off the music everybody looked in his direction._

"_Right, everybody out, party's over," he yelled ushering everyone out. Meredith ran up to him once everyone had left and hit him on the arm._

"_What the hell was that for?" she yelled her voice slurred from all the alcohol she had consumed. _

"_Meredith, you're fifteen. You're fifteen and you're drunk. Where the hell is your mum?" Meredith shrugged her shoulders and walked into the kitchen stumbling a few times on the way. Richard watched in shock but looked to the stairs as he saw a girl walking down them. She hardly looked ten but was the spitting image of Meredith. The girl walked into the kitchen after Meredith and started filling a glass of water which she handed to Meredith as well as too aspirins. Meredith, who was now sat at the kitchen table, took the pills then rested her head on the table. The girl started gathering bottles from the living room and put them inside a bin bag. _

"_I'm sorry," she said to Richard as she returned to the kitchen dragging the bag behind her. Richard smiled and watched as she re-filled Meredith's glass of water. "Do you want something to drink?" she asked. He could sense the fear in her voice and he felt sorry for her whoever she was. _

"_No I'm good thanks," he said. He rested his hand on Meredith's back and she lifted her head and scowled. "Meredith, what are you doing to yourself?" _

"_It's none of your business. Why do you even care?" yelled Meredith getting off of the chair. The girl had gone back to gathering bottles and wiping up spilt alcohol. _

"_Meredith..." _

"_No, you don't get to care. You left mum, don't think I don't know about that, and now because of that she lives her life at the hospital. She doesn't give a shit about me she hasn't done since I was five years old." _

"_Meredith, what shall I do with these?" asked the girl walking back into the kitchen holding up some half drunken bottles. Meredith turned round._

"_Nothing, just leave them, mum can clean it up tomorrow. Go to bed Hil," said Meredith softly. It was obvious she cared about the little girl. _

"_But... She'll yell and you'll get in trouble and..." said the little girl who Meredith had called Hil. It was obvious she was scared about what Ellis would say when she got back._

"_It'll be fine, she's not coming back till lunch anyway so we'll get out before then. I promise, it'll be fine, she won't yell at you anyway. Go to bed, you look shattered, sorry about the party." As Hil walked past Meredith pulled her into a hug and kissed the top of her head. "I promise," she whispered. Meredith and Richard watched as she walked upstairs. As soon as the door shut Meredith turned to Richard anger back in her face. _

"_Just go," she yelled. "What are you even doing here?" _

"_I just wanted to make sure you were alright." Meredith laughed._

"_Yeah, we're fine." _

"_Who's Hil?" _

"_Hil is my cousin Hilary. My mum's sister's daughter, she's here for a bit while her mum does something, I can't remember. Why do you even care?" asked Meredith walking forwards towards the door, she opened it which told Richard it was time to go. Richard walked out of the door._

"_I'm always here if you want to talk," he said softly._

"_Whatever," she yelled nearly in tears as she slammed the door in his face. He watched through the glass as she ran up the stairs. He quickly tried to open the door to make sure she had locked it, it was. He sighed as he walked back to his car still shocked at the way that Meredith was now._

"She was only fifteen," said Izzie as Richard finished telling them the story. Everyone was surprised at what they had just heard.

"So she started drinking at fifteen?" asked Christina looking at Richard.

"I don't know, she could have been drinking long before that. I don't really know when it started." They stood in silence all wondering when Meredith actually did start drinking, her mother really broke her. Hopefully she would have had a few good childhood moments, but they all knew that there was a very small probability that that was true. The silence was broken when Richard's phone beeped telling him that he'd received a message.

_Thanks for telling everyone something that I tried to keep a secret for all these year. I keep secrets for a reason, to stop people from being hurt not for fun. Thanks. _

"Damn it," cursed Richard as he put the phone in his pocket. Part of him knew that he shouldn't have told them and now Meredith was mad at him once again for something that he could have prevented.

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	4. Chapter 4 Dreaded Funeral

**Disclaimer: I still only own the box sets :(**

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"We took him into surgery but then while we were operating..." Meredith was sat in one of the conference rooms across from Louise, Ronny and Jerry. George's family. Behind her stood Richard, Derek and Bailey all looking as sad as her but trying to out on a professional face. Louise was crying as she tried to listen to what happened to her son while Ronny and Jerry comforted her struggling to keep it together themselves. Meredith had tears coming to her eyes as she spoke but carried on recapping what had happened to George. She quickly wiped a tear from her eye and began talking again. "While we were operating he flat-line because of the stress on his heart, there was nothing we could do. We tried everything but we just couldn't revive him." Once she finished she started biting on her lip stopping herself from crying too. Bailey took this as a cue to step in and start talking.

"Would you like to see your son?" she asked walking closer to the table. Louise nodded through her tears. "When he came into the OR his face was pretty beaten up so it will be quite shocking when you see him." Jerry walked out of the room followed by Ronny who was walking along side his mother.

Meredith, Derek and Richard were left in the now silent room, no one knowing what to say to each other. Meredith felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up to see Richard smiling encouragingly at her. Derek helped her to her feet and pulled her into a hug letting her cry softly into his shoulder. Richard shot Derek a sympathetic look both wondering if Meredith would be okay. If any of them would be okay now that George had died.

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It was a three week after Ronny, Jerry and Louise had come to see George. It was the day of George's funeral, the day that everybody had been dreading. Izzie had been let out of the hospital for the day so that she could attend. She was now sat at the kitchen table with Meredith, Alex and Christina all of them staring into space. Owen and Derek walked into the kitchen causing Alex to look up at who had come in.

"You ready to go?" asked Derek to know one in particular. Meredith got up out of her chair and put on her coat. She nodded sadly as everyone else got ready to go. They got into the car and drove off to the church. George was going to be buried in Seattle as Louise had said that's where his real home was, that's where he would want to be buried. As they got to the church they saw a mass of black, there were loads of people standing around making small talk waiting for the service to begin. Alex, Christina, Meredith and Izzie walked over to Louise, Ronny and Jerry and they walked towards the church signalling that the service was going to begin.

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Once the service had finished and George had been buried people started to make their way back to their cars. After about fifteen minutes everybody had left just leaving Alex, Izzie, Meredith, Christina, Derek, Louise, Ronny and Jerry. Owen had left with Richard and Adele after Derek had told him that he would drive the others to Joe's. Derek stood back and watched as they said their last good byes.

"I'll miss you 007," Christina whispered placing a flower on the grave and walking towards Derek who gave her a small smile.

"You would have done great in the army George, I'll never forget you," said Meredith who also placed a flower on his grave and walked towards Derek who pulled her into a hug. Alex walked with Izzie, who was getting tired now, closer to the grave.

"I love you George, I always will. I'll never forget you," she whispered as she turned to face Alex and cried in his shoulder.

"You would have made one hell of a surgeon," said Alex walking away with Izzie. They all walked back to the car just leaving George's family behind and headed off back to Meredith's.

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Christina, Alex and Meredith all walked silently into the house and helped Izzie get comfortable on the sofa so that she could get some sleep. Owen and Derek walked in together and headed towards the kitchen to make coffee.

"They always stick up for each other don't they?" asked Owen as he boiled the kettle and watched Derek sort out the mugs.

"Yeah, you should have seen the way they stuck up for Meredith and supported her when I was an ass," said Derek.

"Yeah, we'll never truly be one of them we'll just be an extra," laughed Owen also remembering the time when Meredith told him to back off from Christina when he strangled her. They poured the hot water into the mugs and carried them into the living room where Izzie was asleep on the sofa and Alex, Christina and Meredith were sat on the floor by her side.

"We made coffee," Derek smiled as he passed each of them a mug. They all smiled but still none of them talked. After of few minutes in the tension filled room Derek and Owen silently walked out leaving the four behind doing their thing that they did when people died. It was the thing that no one really understood but them.

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Later that night when they were lying in bed together Meredith finally talked.

"I'm sorry about today, it's just what we do," she said biting on her bottom lip which showed Derek that she was nervous about how he would respond.

"It's okay, I know, I wasn't mad I promise," he said pulling her into his arms. She sighed and pulled herself closer into him. Derek liked this and he knew that she felt safe which make him know that she wouldn't run from him. "I know this is probably a bad time but my sisters moving to Seattle and she'd like some help moving. I offered to help and I wanted you to meet her so..." Derek was shocked by the response he got.

"Okay."

"Okay, really? You really would meet my sister? Because it's okay and Megan is great, you'd really love her and her three daughters."

"Yeah, Derek its fine. I want to show you how much I'm in this. I know we're post it married and everything but I still want to prove it to you."

"You prove it to me everyday Mer. So Megan's moving down next Thursday, she's moving down with the kids in this nice little house near Elliot Bay. She's already enrolled the kids down at the school and got herself a job at a new branch of the company she works for," Derek said happy that Meredith was so keen to meet another of his sisters especially after Nancy's visit.

"How come she's moving down here?" asked Meredith.

"A bad divorce, I didn't like him from the start but there was nothing I could really do but now I can. Oh yeah, my mum's coming down as well to help her out." Meredith sat up in bed startling Derek slightly. "What's up?" he asked nervously, wondering if had got a bit too much for her.

"Have you got pictures? I mean I can't go and not know who each of them are, can I?" Derek laughed shaking his head sitting up and kissing Meredith lightly on the top of the head. He quickly got out of bed and walked over to the drawers pulling out a small photo album.

"I've been waiting for this," he laughed sitting back on the bed and pulling Meredith closer to him. He opened the albums and started to flick through the pictures. "Here we are. That is Megan just after having Becky who's the youngest," he said pointing to a picture of a woman in her early thirties. She was obviously was one of Derek's sisters as she had the same dark curly hair as Derek however she had brown eyes and not blue. In the next photo there were three girls. The oldest also had curly hair and brown eyes like her mum. The middle girl had dark hair but it was straight probably from her dad and she had Derek's blue eyes. The youngest had blonde hair which was slightly curly and hazel eyes; she was probably the one who looked most like her dad. "That is Sarah," he said pointing to the eldest girl, "she's six no seven years old now," then he pointed to the middle girl. "That's Lacey she's five and she has my eyes," he said smiling proudly.

"I can see," laughed Meredith. "And who's that?" she asked enthusiastically pointing to the youngest child. Derek's heart was pounding; _his _Meredith was taking an interest in his family, something which had once always scared her when he brought it up.

"That is Becky; she'd be about eighteen months old now I think." For the remainder of the night Derek showed her different pictures of Megan and his three niece's that had been taken when he lived in New York and a few that had been sent to him when he was in Seattle. Obviously there was more family than just Megan, Becky, Lacey and Sarah but he didn't want to overwhelm her with everyone at once.

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"Time for your operation now," Bailey said cheerfully as she walked into Izzie's hospital room. She saw the sad faces of Alex and Izzie as she looked up from the chart. "Now, why the long faces? Its routine Izzie, you're going to be fine. After this you'll definitely give us no more scares by flat-lining."

"I know, I know, it's just all I ever have is surgery. I'm bored." Bailey laughed as she helped her onto the gurney that was taking her up to surgery.

"After this we'll get you a DVD to watch and some strawberry ice cream," joked Alex and he kissed the top of Izzie's head.

"After this I'm going to sleep, I'm shattered. Then I'll have the strawberry ice cream," she said kissing Alex's hand. "I'll see you after the surgery?" she asked as Bailey started to wheel her out of the room.

"I'll be right here," he called back. He hated watching her go to have yet another surgery but hopefully it would be over soon and they could spend time out of the hospital getting used to being husband and wife.

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**Only four more exams then I'm free until November! I wanted the funeral part to be better but I didn't really know what to write and didn't have a lot of time so I hope its okay. Please review and tell me what you think :) **

**Thanks for reading**

**LittleMiss x **


	5. Chapter 5 McFamilied

**Disclaimer: Only own the box sets still :( **

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"Morning sleepy head," said Alex as Izzie slowly opened her eyes. The surgery had been successful and now Izzie's heart was fine. Alex went over to kiss her as Bailey walked into the room.

"Morning Stevens, as you've probably guessed the surgery was a success," she said as she started taking her vitals. "Oh yeah, Yang told me to tell you that Grey is going to be, _McFamilied_. She said that you would know what it means and telling by the smile on your face you do, care to explain?" Izzie had a smile spread across her face and as she saw Meredith walk past the window it grew even more.

"Get Meredith, she's outside," she asked. Alex walked to the door and shouted Meredith who followed him back inside the room. "You're going to be McFamilied," she said as Meredith stood at the end of the bed.

"So? It's only one sister and three nieces; it's not that big of a deal. It's not like I'm meeting everyone," she said starting to ramble a bit.

"But it's still one, how big is his family?" she asked loving the way Meredith was starting to squirm.

"Erm, he's got four sisters, five nephews and nine nieces. Like I said it's not that big of a deal." Before Izzie could respond Bailey cut in.

"Could someone please tell me what the hell McFamilied means?"

"Mer's meeting part of Derek's family and has seen photos. She's going to help one of his sister's move to Seattle where she'll be able to spy on her little derbear," said Izzie. Izzie laughed as she saw Meredith's face, she had a look which said 'I'm gonna kill you'.

"Derbear?" asked Alex starting to laugh. Meredith smiled.

"Yeah, that's what they call him."

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Meredith was walking down the corridors still laughing from her conversation in Izzie's room minutes ago.

"Meredith?" someone called from behind her. Her smile changed into a frown as she spun around to see who had called her. Behind her was Thatcher, still trying to get his second chance.

"What?" she said the anger coming to her voice, she hated him, she never wanted to talk to him again.

"I wanted to talk to you; I wanted you to forgive me for everything I've done. I wanted to say I'm sorry, again." Meredith didn't want to talk to him, she hated him. She wanted him to leave her alone, to get the message and stay out of her life.

"You don't get forgiveness from me, I could never forgive you. You ruined my life, you left me when I was five years old and needed my dad. Then you came back and blamed your wife's death on me. Then you left again. Now you come back and ask to be in my life again saying you want to be my dad. You come back for forgiveness which is something you're never going to get from me. I hate you, you ruined me," she yelled. People were watching her as she yelled but she didn't care, she didn't care who heard her yell at him. The 'father' who only just wanted to be in his daughter's life after leaving her when she was five years old with no proper explanation. "I don't care how you feel; I don't care that you need to make amends to help you stay sober. I don't care about _you_. There is not a chance in hell that you will ever get forgiveness from me!" she yelled before storming off down the corridor away from _him _and everyone who was watching.

It wasn't until she got to the supply closet that she started to cry. She sat down in the corner and cried. She wanted to hide away forever and silently cry to herself. A few people came into the closet wanting supplies but nobody saw her which she liked. She didn't want to been seen and talked to. She didn't want people asking her what was wrong or if she was okay. After several minutes she was about to get up and go find Derek when two people came in so she decided to stay in the corner. As soon as they started talking she recognised who it was.

"What's up, you paged me 911 to the supply closet. You desperate for some sex or something?" joked the man. The woman took a deep breath.

"No, I don't want sex. I... I... I'm pregnant." Meredith tried not to gasp by what she had heard. She kept her hand over her mouth so nothing would be heard. She heard the woman begin to cry as the man consoled her. "I don't know what to do. Mark I'm scared."

"It'll be okay Lexie, we'll work through this. Everything will be okay."

"I mean what do we tell people? What will they think?" asked Lexie drying her tears and looking up at Mark.

"We tell them nothing, we can wait for the right time. Obviously soon but we can wait a while." Mark gave her a quick hug before they both left leaving Meredith shocked. Her little sister was pregnant with her husband's best friend. Lexie was having McSteamy baby! After several minutes Meredith got up and walked out of the room promising herself that she would not tell anybody, it was Mark and Lexie's news to tell people.

********************

It was Thursday morning and both Meredith and Derek had been of taking the day off by the Chief. They were walking up the driveway of Megan's new house when Megan burst out of the door.

"Derek!" she yelled pulling her brother into a hug. She pulled away and turned to Meredith. "And you must be Meredith," she said as she pulled her into a hug. "You know I've heard so much about you, you're engaged to my brother but I've never met you until now. I wonder why that is Derek?" she said turning towards her brother giving him a glare.

"We're actually sort of married," he said smiling weakly. She gave him a confused look. "We wrote vows on a post it and then signed it."

"Cool. Now come on I want to be nearly unpacked by tonight." She walked up to the door and showed them into the house. She led the both of them into the kitchen where the three girls were eating their breakfasts. The two oldest ran up to Derek and hugged him as he walked into the room. Megan stood behind the girls after lifting the youngest out of her highchair.

"Well lets have a quick introduction then we'll go unpack. This is Sarah," she said pointing to the oldest. "This is Lacey," pointing the five year old. "And this is Becky, who you both need introducing to as Derek as only seen pictures. And this girls is Auntie Meredith." She handed Becky over to Derek who began tossing her into the air making her laugh. "Well then Derek will you unpack everything in the living room while I unpack my room and Meredith will you help the girls."

"Yeah sure," said Meredith as the two girls led her up the stairs. Lacey and Sarah opened one of the doors and led her inside a fairly big room. In the room there were two beds, one under the window and the other against the wall opposite it. There was a wardrobe and a set of drawers at the side of the door and boxes scattered all over the floor.

"We've got to share a bedroom because there aren't enough bedrooms for one each," said Sarah as she sat on the bed under the window. "This one's my bed that one's Lacey's" she said pointing to the bed across from hers. Lacey looked up from one of the boxes and smiled. Megan walked into the room.

"Sarah grandma's here to take you shopping for your new school clothes; are you ready?" asked Megan.

"But what about my room, everything's still in boxes?" she asked.

"We'll sort it out later. Lacey grandma will buy you your school clothes for you as well but you don't have to go, I know you don't like going shopping." Lacey smiled at her mum and walked over to open another box. Megan smiled at Meredith. "She doesn't talk that much, she's a bit shy." Meredith nodded her head.

Two hours later most of Lacey's boxes had been unpack and put away. Both of the girls' clothes had been put into the wardrobe and drawers and now there were only Sarah's boxes and two of Lacey's boxes left.

"So, which box next?" asked Meredith sitting on Lacey's bed looking around the room.

"This one," said Lacey. She had started to talk more in the last hour of unpacking things and even started laughing. Meredith opened the box which was full of DVD's and teddies. Meredith pulled out the teddies from the box and put them on the bed.

"Where are they going?"

"Up there on the shelf," said Lacey pointing to the shelf above her bed. "But these two are staying on my bed," she said separating a blue bear and a giraffe teddy from the others.

"Okay then." Meredith lifted Lacey up so that she could reach the shelf to put the bears on. To make it more fun she pretended that she was a rocket taking the bears to different planets. Both Lacey and Meredith were both laughing.

********************

Downstairs Derek walked into the kitchen after finishing unpacking most of the stuff in the living room. Megan was unwrapping glasses from a box and putting them into one of the cupboards on the wall.

"Nearly done unpacking the living room, who knew you had so much stuff," joked Derek. Megan turned round about to say something as she heard something from upstairs.

"Did you hear that?" she asked. They both heard it again, laughing coming from upstairs so they went up to see what was happening. They stood in the doorway and saw Meredith and Lacey unpacking the last remaining box of Lacey's. This one was full of dolls and a small cot which they had already built up. They were sat on the floor by the side of it placing the dolls in it one by one.

"What about this one? What's this one called?" asked Meredith taking the last doll from the box.

"That one's called Daisy I got her for Christmas from my uncle Mark last year. I called her Daisy because she has Daisy's on her dress, not this one but the one she came in."

"Your uncle Mark got it for you?"

"Yeah and then we played with her and some of my other dolls for a bit. Why?" she asked innocently not knowing she had told Meredith something that she could use to torture Mark with. She felt someone come behind her so she turned around just as Derek kissed her.

"Uncle Derek! Auntie Meredith helped me put all my things away and we had I fun. I thought it was going to be boring but it wasn't, it was fun." Both Derek and Megan were surprised to how much Lacey was speaking and without mumbling it but with confidence. "Mummy can I go downstairs to get a biscuit?"

"Yeah sure honey," said Megan ruffling her hair as she walked passed. "Wow, that's the most she's said in a year let alone in one day."

"What did you do?" asked Derek helping Meredith to her feet.

"Nothing, I just talked to her, made things more fun."

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**Finally update, will be updating more frequently now :) Please review and tell me what you think! **

**Thanks**

**LittleMiss x **


	6. Chapter 6 Promises

**Disclaimer: I only own the box sets still :( **

**I know it's been nearly a month since I last updated but I've had a lot of course work to do before we broke up but now I've got 7 weeks off so I'll be updating a lot more!! **

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"I'll see you in an hour then?" asked Derek kissing Meredith goodbye. They were stood in the lobby of Seattle Grace; Derek was now in his street clothes and Meredith still in her scrubs.

"Me, Lexie and Mark will meet you in front of the restaurant at six," said Meredith giving him a gentle kiss on the lips, "but that's in two hours not one, sorry," she said before laughing. They shared one light kiss before going their separate ways – Derek was going to pick his mum and sister up while Meredith was going to scrub in on a surgery with Mark.

*********************

"Hey Sarah," said Derek picking up the seven year old as she ran towards him on the driveway.

"Hi Uncle Derek, we all going out later aren't we? To a fancy restaurant," said Sarah as Derek put her down once they entered the house.

"That we are." Sarah held onto Derek's hand and led him into the kitchen where everybody else was. His mother was washing the dishes, Lacey was colouring in one of her many colour books while Megan was feeding Becky something from a bowl. Whatever it was it didn't look that appetising. Carolyn turned around when she heard someone enter and greeted her son with a hug.

"Hi Derek, I didn't get to see you yesterday with all the unpacking and stuff."

"I know mum, it's not my fault though that Megan has too much stuff," he joked.

"Hey!" said Megan putting the empty bowl into the sink. "And it's not my fault you don't bother to call for months." They all laughed and talked for a bit until Lacey walked over to Derek.

"Uncle Derek?" Lacey asked quietly.

"What Lace?" he asked lifting her up onto his knee.

"Is Auntie Meredith going to be at the posh restaurant later?" she asked innocently.

"Yeah Lacey, it's going to be me, you, Becky, Mummy, grandma, uncle Derek, auntie Meredith, uncle Mark and auntie... Who else is going?" Sarah asked knowing that there was someone else but she just couldn't remember.

"Lexie, uncle Marks going to bring his friend Lexie," said Derek. Both girls smiled at him before leaving the kitchen and running upstairs giggling.

"So, have you met this Lexie?" asked Carolyn.

********************

"MEREDITH!" Izzie shouted from inside her room. For a sick cancer patient she couldn't half yell, she was still as loud and bubble as she always was – on her good days.

"Yes Izzie," said Meredith walking into the room and sitting at the end of the bed.

"I just wanted to make sure you were all right seeing as though you got McFamilied yesterday and I heard nothing about it. Spill," she said excitedly, Izzie always got all the gossip. She had a way of getting people to tell her anything.

"It was fine," said Meredith. The smile shrunk on Izzie's mouth, that wasn't the answer she wanted.

"I'm sitting in here, all on my own - well most of the time – with nothing to do. You've got to give me something more than 'it was fine'."

"Fine, I met his sister and three of his nieces. I helped the two oldest nieces unpack some of their things and then we had a sandwich with them and went home. Happy now?"

"Not really, I want more information," she begged, showing Meredith her 'cancer eyes'.

"Like what?" asked Meredith checking her watch, she had to scrub in on a surgery in twenty minutes.

"What were they like? Did you meet his mother? Who do you like the most?"

"Well... Megan seems nice, we only talked when we ate the sandwiches and that was only what they were going to do with the house and what his other sisters had been doing later. Lacey, the five year old, is really sweet, she doesn't talk much - she's really shy. It's cute really. I didn't really meet her oldest, Sarah, she went with their mother to buy school clothes but what I've seen of her she seems nice, a bit bubbly like you but nice. Her youngest is 18 months old and I was busy so I didn't really get time to meet her properly. No I didn't meet his mother, as I said she went out to by school clothes for the kids. But we're all going out to a restaurant later today once I've finished surgery which I really should be getting to," she rambled without really taking a breath.

"Okay, once last question," she said making Meredith sigh. "It's only a quick one I promise. Who's _all _of us?" she asked.

"Erm... me and Derek... Carolyn, his mother... Megan and her three kids... and then Mark and Lexie. Can I go now?"

"Yeah you can go. I'm looking for Lexie now," said Izzie with an evil smile on her face. Meredith laughed as she walked of the room and headed for her surgery with Mark.

********************

Derek was waiting outside the restaurant with his mother, Megan, Lacey and Sarah, Becky was sat in the pram. It was half past six and they were waiting for the others to arrive.

"You sure you told them six o'clock?" asked Megan looking at her watch _again._

"Yeah, I'm sure. They're probably stuck in traffic or something."

"Or maybe down at the local pub downing a few pints."

"Megan!" shouted Carolyn. Megan looked to the floor guilty as Derek shot her a look that said 'haha'. About five minutes later Mark's car pulled up and Mark and Lexie got out and started to walk over to the others.

"Sorry we're late the guy just wouldn't stop bleeding. Who knew that you're arm would bleed when you got it amputated off," Mark joked.

"It's not his fault, it's not like he thought this morning 'oh I know, why don't I get in a car accident and get my arm amputated which will never stop bleeding," Lexie argued back.

"He probably did just to annoy me," he joked before giving her a passionate kiss so she couldn't retaliate.

"Okay Mark, would you like to introduce us to your new girlfriend?" asked Megan breaking the two apart.

"Oh yeah, this is my girlfriend Lexie," he said proudly with a huge smile on his face. "Lexie this is Megan Derek's sister and her kids Sarah, Lacey and Becky and then this is his mum Carolyn."

"Hello," she said slightly nervous. She hoped that Meredith would hurry up so that she wouldn't be all alone with nothing to talk about all night.

"Hello dear," said Carolyn pulling her into a tight hug.

"Er...Do you know where Mer is? She was supposed to be getting a lift with you wasn't she?" asked Derek slightly worried about where she was and how she was going to get to the restaurant. Mark was being pulled into a hug by Carolyn so Lexie answered him instead.

"Oh yeah, she said she had a quick errand to run and she'll get a lift from Alex or Christina or someone."

"Did she say how long she would be?" asked Derek wondering what she was doing.

"No but she said that she shouldn't be long and will you order her a coke."

"Okay then," said Derek laughing. Derek, Mark, Lexie, Carolyn, Megan and the kids all walked inside the restaurant and were seated.

********************

Meredith was sat in one of the on-call rooms with her phone in her hands. Her hands were shaking slightly and she had a few tears in her eyes. She badly wanted to call her but she couldn't, she wanted to call Hil with all her heart but she was too scared to how she would react. She remembered back to the time when she first found out about Jayden and how scared Hil was to tell her about it.

_Meredith was sat in the kitchen to their new apartment drinking her third cup of coffee. She had been out the night before with a few friends from college and the tequila got the better of her. She promised herself only to have a few shots but she didn't keep that promise to herself. It wasn't until three in the morning when she finally climbed into her bed and now she was paying. _

"_Morning Mer, how are you feeling? I didn't hear you come in last night," said Hilary walking into the kitchen and getting herself a cup of coffee. Meredith groaned as she refilled her cup for a fourth time. "That good eh? You sure you don't want to just go back to bed?" _

"_No, I got to be at collage in an hour so there's no point. It's my own fault," she said taking an aspirin. "What are you planning on doing today?" she asked getting up and heading to the bathroom. _

"_Er... you know... just the usual... you know," said Hil nervously facing away from Meredith 'to empty her remaining coffee down the sink'. _

"_Hilary what aren't you telling me?" _

"_Nothing... nothing... it's just... nothing..." she said. After a long pause she started to burst into tears. "I'm pregnant." _

"_Hil," Mer said surprised to what she had just been told. She walked over to Hilary, who was bent over the sink crying, and put her arm around her shoulders pulling her into hug. "When did this happen? Do you know who the father is? Oh my god Hil, congratulations!" Hil laughed through her tears and took a deep breath to regularise her breathing. _

"_It was this guy from the party I went to about a month ago; he was this guy I used to date back in Virginia. I was going to tell you sooner but I was so scared, I didn't know what you were going to say and... and..." By now they were both sitting on the kitchen floor – Meredith had Hilary in her arms and was stroking her hair to try and calm her down. _

"_It's going to be okay I promise, I'm going to help you through this, I promise." _

Meredith put her phone back in her pocket and left the room deciding that she wouldn't call Hilary. She was too scared to.

********************

Derek was sat in the restaurant in silence still wondering where Meredith was while everybody was sat talking around him. They were waiting for Meredith to arrive before they ordered their food but they already had drinks.

"Mummy, I'm hungry," moaned Sarah looking up from the book that she was reading. Lacey also looked up from the picture that she was colouring in.

"Why don't you lot just order and I'll wait for Mer, she shouldn't be long now," said Derek going back to stare out of the window looking for Meredith to arrive.

"No it's okay we'll wait a bit longer," said Megan. Derek wasn't listening any more so instead they changed the topic.

"So how did you two meet?" Megan asked Mark and Lexie. Mark smiled at Lexie who was trying not to burst out laughing.

"Erm... Mer's here," said Mark changing the subject.

***

Alex pulled up outside the restaurant waiting for Meredith to get out.

"You know you need to actually get out of the car to go have dinner and be McFamilied again," he joked sensing that Meredith was upset about something and trying to lighten the mood. "You okay? Because I can always drive away quickly before they see you."

"No, no, I'm okay," she said but still in her own world. She got out of the car and started walking up to the restaurant. She watched as Alex drove away and walked through the door. She was greeted by Derek at the doorway and they went down to sit at the table. Before she sat down she whispered 'congratulations' in Lexie's ear which shocked Lexie.

"Supply closets are my hiding place," she joked before sitting down next to Derek. Lexie smiled and looked at the floor. "I won't tell," she whispered so only Lexie could hear.

"Do I want to know?" asked Derek. Meredith shook her head before her and Lexie started laughing. Everybody looked confused to why the two had just started laughing.

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**Please R&R, I promise to update more often now. I have a lot of free time :)**

**LittleMiss x **


	7. Chapter 7 Dinner With The Shepherds

**Disclaimer: I only own the box sets still :( **

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Lexie and Meredith looked at each other still chuckling after their burst of laughter.

"How? Why?" asked Lexie through the chuckling.

"Dad," said Meredith shrugging her shoulder which told Lexie everything. Everyone was staring at the two of them talking in their own little code which made them laugh.

"What are you two on about?" asked Mark looking at them curiously. "Either she knows something or you two are plotting to take over the world together," he said in a serious tone.

"Plotting to take over the world together," Meredith repeated. "That's something nobody's said about us before."

"Sounds like a fun thing to do though," said Lexie smiling. "I'm sorry to say Mark but no were not planning to take over the world together. She knows." Mark looked shocked but then his face relaxed as he realised she was happy about it.

"How? I mean do you too share some telepathic powers 'cause you're sisters or something?" he asked. Megan and Carolyn looked shocked as they realised that they were indeed sisters. They had know that they shared the same last name but neither of them had made the leap that they were sisters.

"You're sisters?" asked Megan clarifying what she had just heard. Lexie nodded her head letting Meredith do the explaining.

"Yeah, we have the same dad. We found out a couple of years back," Mer said still smiling.

"Yeah, it was my first day as an intern, I blocked the ER doors and you were pissed. You met Molly when she came in because of the baby, right." Meredith nodded. Both of them were silent as they remembered the first few weeks of Lexie's internship. Carolyn noticed the tension in the air as they remembered so she changed the subject.

"So, what do people think about finally ordering. If we don't order soon the kids are going to starting eating the tables." Everybody agreed so she called for the waiter to come over and take their orders. Once everybody had ordered they began their previous conversation again.

"So, what does _she know_?" Carolyn asked. Lexie looked at Mark and nodded telling him that she was okay if he told them. Mark smiled back and took a deep breath before he told them the best news he'd ever heard.

"Lexie's pregnant," he said with an ear-to-ear smile on his face. Derek turned towards Meredith who was also smiling. He was happy; it was the first real smile he'd seen on her face since George had died.

"Wow, I never thought I'd here that. I feel sorry for you Lexie. You're going to have to put with him now for a very long time."

"Hey, that's not very fair," said Mark offended. Everybody laughed again as the waiter brought them their food.

"So you never answered me earlier, how did you two meet?" asked Megan.

"I'll let you tell them that," said Lexie taking a drink from her coke.

"Thanks a lot for your support sweetheart. Anyway why don't you ask Derek it was his fault?" Everybody looked from Mark to Derek confused even Lexie.

"My fault, it was you who..." As Derek carried on with the story Meredith remembered back to when she and Hil found out the sex of her baby. She'd never forget that day for as long as she'd live. It was one of the happiest moments in her life.

_Hilary was sat on the edge of the hospital bed still holding onto Meredith's hand. The doctor had just nipped out to print of the ultrasound photo. The very first photo of Hilary's baby was being printed. They had already heard the heartbeat a few weeks ago, that was amazing. The two of them stayed in silence until the doctor came back in with the photo in her hands. _

"_So do you want to know the sex of your baby?" she asked handing the picture over to Hilary. She just nodded her head completely astonished by the photo she held in her hand. "Well you're having a baby boy." Before the doctor had even finished talking tears were running down both Hilary and Meredith's faces. Hilary was so overwhelmed by what was happening but also very excited and really happy. Meredith was glad her baby sister was finally happy again. _

"_We need to go shopping," she whispered though her tears. Meredith laughed as she helped her off of the bed. _

"_That we do." _

"You remember that don't you Mer?" asked Derek bringing her out of the memory.

"Erm... Yeah... Yeah I remember," she answered nervously not even sure what they were now talking about.

"Have you decided whether you're going to find out the sex?" asked Carolyn.

"We're going to wait until the baby's born, a surprise," said Lexie.

"When are we going shopping? We need to get the little gal or guy set up with some stuff don't we," said Megan. Lexie nodded her head. Mark looked at her and smiled he was glad she was getting along with the people he had called family since he was a young boy.

"Neat, a shopping trip."

"You're not coming," Lexie said with a smile. "It's going to be a girly shopping trip, no guys... But I will take your credit card." Megan laughed. "You in Mer?" Lexie asked. "Mer?"

"What? Sorry... Yeah I'm in. When we going?" she asked as everybody stared at her. "What?"

"You okay?... you feeling okay?" asked Derek who was concerned that she was going back into her shell that she created a long time ago. She would go into it when something was going wrong. She was only just coming out after George's death and he had to prevent her going back in.

"Yeah I'm fine. I was just thinking that's all. I was in a world of my own." Everybody relaxed but Derek still had a concerned look on his face. "Derek I'm fine, I promise." They went back to talking about what kind of things they would need to buy and how they would decorate the nursery. Meredith remembered the times when her and Hilary had gone shopping. They had spent hours looking at loads of different baby clothes, cots, prams, high chairs, car seats etc.

"_Hil, just look how small these clothes are. They're tiny," said Meredith holding up a little blue baby grow. _

"_They're so sweet," Hilary replied putting another selection of outfits into the trolley. "Mer I'm going to have a baby!" she said proudly with a huge smile spread across her face. Meredith was overjoyed that her sister was cheerful again. _

"Green or yellow Mer?" asked Lexie bringing her back to reality. Meredith looked confused.

"What?"

"What colour should we paint the nursery, green or yellow?" Lexie asked again.

"Oh right... erm... yellow then... no, green... erm... I don't know," she said. For the rest of the evening they discussed more baby related things. an hour later they decided to leave as the restaurant was near closing time.

They all walked outside. Lexie and Mark hugged everyone goodbye then walked over to his car and then drove away.

"I'll see you later, yeah?" asked Megan who was carrying Lacey in her arms because she was asleep and leaning onto the pram that Becky was asleep in. Sarah was leant up against her leg trying not to fall asleep.

"Yeah okay," said Derek picking up Sarah. They all walked over to Megan's car and helped Megan to strap the kids into their different car seats.

"You okay for getting back to the hotel mum?" asked Megan climbing into the drivers seat.

"You're stopping in a hotel mum? Why?" asked Derek shocked.

"Yes dear, where else can I stop. Megan hasn't got the room in her new house has she?"

"We've got a spare room, Izzie isn't exactly gonna go back to her room now that her and Alex are married," said Meredith.

"Are you sure," asked Carolyn. Meredith nodded her head and Derek smiled. he was proud of her, she would never had dared offered to let his mother stay when they first met. She had grown so much. "Well, thank you."

"You might need to move some of Izzie's stuff though, I haven't been in there in a while." Derek laughed. Megan drove off after she knew her mum was going to be fine. Carolyn, Derek and Meredith got into Derek's car and drove off to Meredith's stopping at the hotel Carolyn was supposed to be staying at so that she could cancel the room and pick up her bags.

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**Sorry for taking so long to update, I've had a lot of sleep to catch up on :P The next update shouldn't take long, I promise. Updates may go quicker if you press the big review button :)**

**LittleMiss x **


	8. Chapter 8 A New House And

**Disclaimer: I only own the box sets :( **

**Okay so updates are gonna be a bit quicker this next week I've been doing a lot of writing lately. I've also got some new stories lined up too which I will be posting in the next few days so please look out for them :P **

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Meredith woke up early the next morning, for some reason she couldn't sleep even with Derek's arms wrapped protectively around her. She climbed out of bed wrapping her dressing gown around her and walked down to the kitchen trying to make as little sound as possible so that she didn't wake anybody else in the house.

Alex was already in the kitchen making a pot of coffee when she walked in. Even though it was five thirty in the morning this was his new daily routine. Since Izzie was starting to get better he had started to come home from the hospital at night. But he did still spend every minute of the day at the hospital either to work or to spend time with Izzie.

"Morning," she said yawning and grabbing a cup from the cupboard. Alex turned around and filled up both his and Meredith's cup with coffee.

"You look like shit," he commented making her laugh.

"Thanks Alex. You working today?" she asked sitting down at the table. Alex took a container out of the fridge along with two forks before sitting down at the table with her.

"No, you?" he asked removing the lid to reveal left over mac and cheese from his dinner the night before. They both picked up a fork and began eating.

"This morning, yeah, I get off at one though. You spending the day with Izzie?" she asked.

"Actually I wanted to ask you for a favour." She looked at him telling him to continue. "Well me and Izzie are married now, you know that." She nodded, both remembering Izzie and Alex's wedding day. How perfect it was for them. "Well I was wondering if you'd come to look around some apartments with me. I wanted something for me and Izzie to look forward to that doesn't involve cancer or surgery or hospitals." Meredith smiled, she was happy for two of her friends that she considered family.

"Alex I'd love to. Are you sure you want _me _to go though?"

"It was either you or Christina," he said before laughing, Meredith laughed too.

"Maybe we could all go together; me, you, Christina and maybe even Lexie. That okay with you?"

"Sure, let's say half one?"

"That's fine, I'll tell the other two later." Alex continued eating the mac and cheese while Meredith went upstairs to get washed and dressed for work. Alex scraped the last few bits of mac and cheese into the bin and washed up their pots, waiting for Meredith. They'd both agreed to drive into work together as it was easier.

Twenty minutes later they were both walking out of the door. Meredith had left Derek a note telling him that she had gone to work so that he didn't worry when he woke up.

********************

It was ten o'clock when Derek woke up and went into the kitchen. Carolyn was already in there cooking something on the oven. Derek walked straight over to the note that was stuck on the fridge.

_- Der _

_Gone to work._

_Going apartment hunting with Alex, Christina and Lexie later so I'll call you _

_- Mer x _

_P.S. Don't tell Izzie please :) _

Derek smiled once he'd read the note.

"What you making?" he asked pouring himself a cup of coffee and sitting down at the table.

"Pancakes, you want some?" Derek nodded his head. "What you planning on doing today?" she asked handing him his pancakes and sitting down next to him with a plate of her own.

"I dunno, I might catch up on some paperwork at the hospital."

"I thought it was your day off."

"It is I just don't know what to do. Meredith's at work this morning and then she's going apartment hunting with Christina, Lexie and Alex. Hmm... I might go fishing."

"Well I'm going with Megan and the kids to the aquarium; you're welcome to join us if you want."

"No I think I'm going to go spend some time alone and go fishing."

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"Tell me again why I'm doing this," whined Christina. Both Christina and Meredith were walking towards Izzie's room. They were meeting Alex and Lexie there in five minutes.

"Because you love Izzie and you want her to be happy," said Meredith. Christina glared at her. "You know that it's true."

"Yeah if you say so," she said smiling knowing that it _was _true.

Lexie was already waiting outside Izzie's room by the time they arrived. They looked through the window and saw Izzie who was asleep and Alex sitting next to her in a world of his own. Christina knocked on the window trying not to wake Izzie but loud enough to get Alex's attention. He looked up and made his way to the door grabbing his coat on the way.

"Hurry up Alex we haven't got all afternoon," said Christina from the doorway.

"Actually, we have," reminded Meredith. Christina was about to respond but Alex put his hand in front of her mouth.

"It's all about the love now," he said making them all laugh.

"You've all gone soft... It's creepy."

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"Oh my god, how long does it take to find an apartment?" moaned Christina as they drove to another apartment. In the last five hours they had looked at seven different apartments, none of which had jumped out at Alex as being the perfect one for him and Izzie to share. "I mean they all look the same, why can't you just choose one?"

"Christina," Meredith warned. "Izzie's going to be spending a lot of time there; he wants it to be special."

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They walked through the door of the eighth apartment and were amazed. It opened up to an open planned kitchen, dining room and living room. There were two big windows looking out over the bay. The floors were laminated all way through until they reached the walls which were painted in a light cream colour. There was a fireplace on the wall that acted as a separator between the kitchen and living room which was painted red. The wall with the windows was also painted red. There were four doors leading out of the room. Everyone split up to look around for themselves. The first door Alex went through lead to the bathroom which was both spacious and light. In it were both a bath and a shower and the toilet. The floor was covered in black tiles that carried on up the walls until it met up with the white painted walls half way up. He walked out of the room and through the second door. The guest bedroom. The walls were papered with a simple light red wallpaper but as it got nearer to the top there were Chinese lettering in gold and black. The cream carpet felt nice as he walked further into the room imagining what it would be like with their furniture in it. He then walked back out of the room and into the next room.

It was the master bedroom. As he walked in the cream carpet was soft and fluffy beneath his feet. The walls were painted in cream and the largest wall was painted in a chocolate brown. The room was empty but he could almost see the furniture that he'd put in it; a big double bed, a huge wardrobe to fit all of Izzie's clothes in and a TV on the wall so they could lie in bed in the morning and watch it. He smiled to himself and walked through the last door to the balcony which overlooked the bay. He leaned up next to the fence and he thought about all of the times he and Izzie could sit and watch the sunset.

"You like it?" asked Izzie joining him on the balcony followed by Meredith and Christina.

"I love it; I'm just imagining where everything would go and what memories we could have."

"So you think you're going to put a deposit on it?" asked Meredith.

"Yeah I think I am."

"Thank god," sighed Christina leaning against the fence. Everybody laughed as they made their way out of the apartment.

"I need furniture!" he suddenly realised. Meredith and Lexie looked at each other and smiled.

"Shopping trip," said Lexie. Christina groaned.

"Oh yeah but we'll let you skip it if you want to," said Meredith.

"No I'll go. I need a new TV anyway." As they walked to the car they arranged to all go soon – the upcoming Friday. They'd agreed on dragging Mark, Derek and Owen along so they could help Alex carry they heavy stuff.

"Oh yeah, please don't tell Izzie. I want it to be a surprise." They all nodded as they got into the car and drove away. Alex was going to put a deposit on the apartment tomorrow morning.

********************

It had been a week since Alex had put the deposit on the apartment. They had gone shopping for furniture on Friday like they had planned. They had bought the necessities such as sofa's, dining table and chairs, a TV, the bed, wardrobes, cupboards, chairs etc. But then Lexie and Meredith had gone overboard and bought other things like a coffee table, rugs, crockery, pictures and other decorative items. Alex had nearly moved in all of their stuff. He'd just about finished unpacking all of the boxes, who knew Izzie had so much stuff. Derek, Mark and Owen had come over to help build up the big stuff that they'd bought. Now Alex was sat on the new sofa drinking a beer when his phone rang.

********************

Alex had called everybody into Izzie's room. He'd sounded excited on the phone when he'd rung to tell Meredith to come in. When she entered the room it was already crowded. Lexie, Mark, Christina, Owen, Derek, Richard, Bailey, Arizona, Callie and Dr. Swender were all stood around the bed where Izzie was laying and Alex was stood at the side next to her.

"Took your time didn't you?" said Christina as Meredith walked closer to Derek.

"I was stuck in traffic," she said defending herself.

"Well anyways now that we're all here, we've asked you all to come here because we've got some big news," started Alex. He looked at Izzie and smiled.

"Erm... The cancers gone."

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**Thanks for reading this chapter. I know it's a little long but I got carried away :P Next update should be soon. Please review.**

**LittleMiss x**


	9. Chapter 9 A Surprise And A Shopping Trip

**Disclaimer: I only own the box sets still :( **

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"_Erm... The cancers gone." _

"You mean _all _the cancers gone?" asked Meredith as she and Christina moved closer to the bed.

"Yeah, Dr. Swender says that she can't see anymore mets on my recent scans," said Izzie smiling.

"So when are we celebrating," asked Christina after hugging her friend. She rarely hugged anyone but this was a special moment like the time she had hugged Meredith.

"They want to keep me in for a bit longer so I don't know," she replied rolling her eyes.

"If you agree to come in for weekly check-ups and take care of yourself at home then I don't see why can't go home by the end of the week," said Dr. Swender making a few last notes in the chart.

"Really?"

"Yep because I'm sure you're friends will report to me if the slightest thing seems wrong," she said making everyone laugh before leaving the room.

"Yeah, I get to go home on Friday," said Izzie excitedly. She'd been stuck in the hospital for months now so she was desperate to get out and go home. Everyone stayed for a while to congratulate and hug both Alex and Izzie. People started to leave as they still had jobs to do.

"Congratulations _Dr_. Stevens," said Richard hugging her then exiting the room leaving Meredith, Christina and Lexie the only ones left. Izzie was smiling as she had been worried about her job since she had found out about the cancer but the subtle hint had pushed away all of her worries. She'd be able to go back to her job as soon as she was one hundred percent better.

"Can I talk to you three outside for a minute?" asked Alex. They all nodded and walked outside. "Well Izzie's coming home on Friday and I wanted to make it special so could you get a few people round at the apartment, for let's say three o'clock?"

"Yeah that sound like a great idea Alex," said Meredith. Lexie's pager went off so she quickly hugged Alex.

"Sounds like a great idea, congrats Alex," she said before quickly rushing off down the corridor.

"It doesn't have to be an Izzie styled party either," he laughed making them all remember the parties Izzie had hosted. Christina's pager brought them all back from their memories.

"I'll see you in a bit, congrats Alex," she said before rushing off in the same direction Lexie had just a few seconds before.

"We won't do an Izzie styled party but we will pick a few things up to make it a normal party." Meredith smiled and hugged him. "Congratulations Alex," she said before walking down the corridor to find Derek. Alex smiled to himself, glad that he had the friends that he had.

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It was half past two on Friday and Lexie, Meredith and Christina were rushing around Alex and Izzie's apartment trying to get everything ready. Christina hand hung up various banners around the room and was in the process of blowing up nearly three dozen balloons. Meredith and Lexie were sorting out all of the food. They'd made some little sandwich triangles, a fruit salad and a selection of buns and cakes. They'd also bought mini sausages, mini sausage rolls and cheese and pineapple cubes. Meredith was now arranging it all on plates to put onto the table while Lexie had gone to change. Christina had already changed before she'd started to blow up the balloons. Mark and Derek walked through the door carrying a large flat box between them.

"You got the cake?" asked Meredith putting the last plate onto the table.

"Yep, where do you want it?" asked Mark. Meredith pointed to a space that she had made in the middle of the table.

"I'm going to change, people should be arriving any minute now," said Meredith walking to the guest bedroom. Christina finished blowing up the last of the balloons and stood up.

"Thank god for that," she said inhaling a deep breath.

"How many balloons do you want Yang?" asked Mark looking at the floor which was covered on balloons. There were even some tied to the walls and around the door in an arc.

"Ask your girlfriend," she said making her way to the sofa.

"Ask me what?" Lexie said emerging from the bathroom in blue jeans, a white floaty top with silver sequins along the top and silver shoes. She walked over to Mark who wrapped his arms around her resting his hands on her stomach.

"You've gone crazy, I thought this wasn't supposed to be an Izzie styled party," he said kissing the top of her head.

"We couldn't decide which ones we wanted so we just got them all. Anyway it wasn't me who blew them up, Christina could have stopped when she thought there was enough," she said.

"Don't blame the craziness on me," Christina said holding her hands up. "I didn't want to get on the wrong side of a hormonal pregnant woman." Lexie glared at her before they all started laughing.

"It does look good in here though, very... Izzie," said Derek looking around and going for one of the buns.

"Don't you dare!" said Meredith coming out of the guest bedroom. Derek put the bun down and walked over to her pulling her into a hug and giving her a quick kiss on the lips.

"Spoilsport, I'm hungry," he said sticking out his bottom lip like a three year old would when they couldn't have what they wanted.

"You should have eaten earlier then." Before he could respond there was a knock at the door. Lexie went to answer it and was met by most of the people they'd invited. They'd probably all driven form Seattle Grace together. Bailey, Callie, Arizona, Owen and Tucker all walked into the room and looked around.

"I thought this wasn't supposed to be an Izzie themed party," said Bailey seeing all of the balloons. Tucker ran straight into them making them all laugh. Meredith sighed not wanting to explain it all again. "Thanks again for letting me bring Tucker."

"It's no problem," said Christina starting to play with the balloons along with Tucker.

"Aww, Christina's showing more of her motherly side," joked Mark. A few minutes later there was another knock on the door which Meredith went to answer. She let in Richard and Adele who were both amazed by the party and both commenting on how good everything looked. Before she closed the door she saw Joe and Walter walk up the corridor. They stood around for ten minutes until Meredith's phone rang to tell her that Alex was with Izzie in the parking lot.

They heard Izzie before they even saw her.

"Alex tell me where we're going... please," she begged. Christina quickly turned off the lights and everybody got into a big crowd next to the sofa. Christina, Meredith and Lexie stood in front of everybody else, all three of them anxious to see Izzie's expression when she turned on the lights. They heard the key turn in the lock then watched as the door opened. Alex reached to turn on the light and everybody yelled surprise shocking Izzie.

"Welcome home, honey," said Alex. The tears of happiness welled up in her eyes as she looked around at the people who were there. They'd all come here to welcome her home, they'd all come for her.

"This is _our _apartment?" she asked. She was stunned by what was happening not only had people come to welcome her home but now she had a new home, a home with Alex.

"Yeah, Meredith, Christina and Lexie helped me chose it." She started to look around the room and was astounded. It was beautiful. She went over to the windows and looked out to see the gorgeous view of the bay. She turned back to her friends with tears running down her face. "Does that mean you like it?" asked Alex seeing the tears and walking closer to her.

"I love it," she whispered as Alex pulled her into a hug.

"Thank god," said Christina breaking the two apart. Izzie looked at her confused. "Do you know how many apartments we looked around until we found this one?"

"She's trying to say she's happy you like it," said Meredith going over to hug her friend. Christina was reluctantly pulled into it as well. Everyone else in the 'crowd' looked at them and smiled. None of them knew that the four of them were all wishing that the fifth member to their family could be here to see it.

Once the hug had ended everyone went to get some of the food while Meredith turned on the music and played whatever was on Izzie's iPod. Alex her looked around happy that everyone else was happy and having a good time. And he was on cloud nine now that he knew Izzie was okay and she loved _their _new apartment.

********************

"Oh my gosh, this is so cute," commented Megan picking up a cream sleep suit with Eeyore on it. They'd been shopping for four hours and had bought tonnes of stuff; clothes, toys, teddies, blankets, dummies, bottles etc. They'd walked into every different bay shop that they had come across.

"So, when's your baby shower going to be?" asked Carolyn coming over with an arm full of toys and cuddly teddies.

"Ooh, can I plan it?" asked Izzie catching up with them all. It had been two weeks since she'd been released home; she was getting bored there on her own so Meredith had invited her shopping with them. But only if she promised to tell them when she was getting too tired or felt ill in any way. Lexie and Meredith turned to each other and rolled their eyes.

"Sure you can but don't go overboard," said Lexie knowing that she would but at least it would give her something to do when she was at home.

"We could have a huge party outside in the sun. You've got that big garden haven't you?" she asked, her eyes gleaming just imagining the different things that she could plan.

"Here we go again," said Meredith. Izzie just smiled.

"You know you love me really."

"Course I do Iz," she said giving her friend a hug. They walked around a few more shops before going into a cafe for a break. The waiter came to take everybody's orders – everyone order a hot drink plus a muffin or slice of cake.

"Well this has been fun," said Lexie taking a drink of her hot chocolate.

"Definitely," said Izzie yawning. They talked for another few minutes until Mark and Alex came over to them.

"What are you two doing here?" asked Lexie once Mark had wrapped his arms around her.

"I'm here to pick Izzie up, it's four o'clock."

"What? I have a curfew now?" she asked standing up. She was secretly glad that Alex had come to take her home; she was shattered after the day full of shopping.

"Yep," said Meredith standing up as well. Alex helped Izzie put her coat on while Meredith hugged Lexie, Carolyn and Megan goodbye. "I'll see you later." They all watched as Meredith and Alex helped Izzie, who was getting tired, walk away.

"She has a curfew?" asked Megan curiously as Mark sat down in one of the empty chairs. "It's only four o'clock.

"She needs her rest; she's two weeks into her remission stage. She had stage four metastatic melanoma," said Lexie eating a piece of her muffin.

"Bless her, I hope she stays that way, she seemed like such a nice girl."

"Yeah she is," said Lexie smiling. She was finally starting to be accepted into their small family which was more than anyone else could say even Derek. "Oh yeah, I let her plan my baby shower," she said turning to Mark.

"Great," he said sarcastically.

"I thought it was a nice idea," said Carolyn. "It's sweet of her to take the time to plan it for you." Lexie and Mark laughed. Mark patted her on the shoulder and started to tell her about all the parties he'd seen Izzie plan and the wedding.

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**Wow, I've never updated this fast before :P I've already started writing the next chapter so that should be up soon. Please tell me what you think of the chap and any ideas are welcome. **

**LittleMiss x**


	10. Chapter 10 Baby Shower

**Disclaimer: I only own the box sets :( **

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Izzie had been planning Lexie's baby shower for nearly three months and now the day had come. Lexie was now five and a half months pregnant and had officially moved into Mark's new house. Lexie, Meredith and Christina were helping Izzie decorate the room. Unfortunately it was raining outside so they had to re-locate to the living room. Izzie had bought various banners in creams, whites and yellows. The biggest one was custom-made banner that Izzie had specially ordered saying, 'a new mcsteamy baby.' She had also bought white and silver balloons which Christina blown up, much to her dismay, and tied to different parts of the walls.

Lexie and Izzie were currently sorting out the food, laying it out on the table. A range of different foods had been bought including mini sausages, cheese cubes, pizzas, quiche, sandwiches, French fancies, gingerbread men and round doughnut balls. Lexie snuck one of the doughnut balls in her mouth thinking that Izzie wasn't watching her. Meredith had already been shouted at for taking one of the mini sausages.

"Don't think I didn't see you," Izzie said causing Lexie to jump out of her skin. Izzie had not even turned around; she had her back to Lexie which freaked her out even more. Maybe she'd got a sixth sense or something when she was battling cancer and nearly died she thought to herself.

"Baby made me do it," she replied sheepishly making Meredith laugh from the other side of the room. Izzie turned around and glared at her.

"Don't give me that," she started still glaring but then she softened up a little. "I'm okay with you eating a few but don't eat all of them we have people coming soon." Meredith finished putting up a table for people to presents on and walked over to the two of them.

"Hey! I got yelled at when I took one," she said pretending to be hurt. Lexie stuck her tongue out at her while she glared back both acting like three year olds. Christina came into the room followed by Molly who were both shaking their heads at the two of them.

"Honestly you two can't you just _pretend_ to be adults?" said Christina as Molly was hugging both of her sisters.

"She started it," moaned Meredith pointing to Izzie. Izzie looked shocked.

"Me?" she said confused still looking shocked.

"Yeah," she said but before she could finish there was a knock on the door which Izzie went to go and answer. "So how you been doing sis?" she asked Molly as everybody went to sit on the sofa's in the living room.

"Not bad, Laura's reaching the terrible twos so it's a little hectic at home," she said laughing. Izzie came back into the room moments later along with Callie, Arizona and Bailey who had all driven over from the hospital together after their shifts. They each put their presents onto the table Meredith had set up earlier. Lexie hugged them all as they sat down. They talked for a while and Izzie allowed them to eat while they waited for the last of the guests – Lexie's friends.

When the doorbell rang Lexie went to answer it herself and returned with two women that the others didn't recognise. She introduced them as Chloe and Rachel. Chloe was a short slim brunette woman who made herself look taller by wearing black heels. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a black short sleeved t-shirt on. Rachel was much taller; she had blonde hair that flowed down her back and eyes that showed she'd seen too much in life. She was standing looking around trying not to make any eye contact; she too was wearing jeans with a white t-shirt.

"This is my sisters Molly as you know and Meredith," she said pointing them out. The two women smiled at them as she continued. "And this is Izzie, Callie, Arizona, Bailey and... Christina should be around here somewhere," she finished looking around her. Christina walked back into the living room with a scowl on her face after having a conversation with Mark on the phone.

"Your boyfriend really needs to get a life, seriously," she said making everyone laugh.

"I thought he was with Derek," said Meredith. "They were going to meet Owen at Joes after surgery."

"They are, he just wanted to check in first," she replied shaking her head.

"I'm sure he won't be doing it again by the look of your face, did you yell?" asked Lexie, she felt slightly guilty for Mark but then again they had warned him the consequences if he tried to call.

"Not at all," she said sitting back down. Chloe and Rachel both sat down feeling slightly left out, all these women knew a lot about each other and seemed to 'hang out' regularly.

"So, where do you all work?" asked Chloe trying to start a conversation that they were also included in.

"We're all surgeons at Seattle Grace," said Arizona. Now they knew why they were all so close. They knew through Lexie that surgeons worked long hours so they probably made friends with people from work. "We all work in different areas though, I'm in paediatrics."

"I'm an orthopaedic surgeon. We all work in different areas but somehow we found each other," she said laughing.

"I'm only an intern at the moment so I work in all areas," said Lexie, none of the other female interns had been able to come because of work.

"We're residents, no specialty... yet," said Christina indicating herself, Meredith and Izzie. "Bailey was our resident when we were interns."

"Yeah and we were the best interns ever!" said Izzie sarcastically. Bailey rolled her eyes.

"Yeah sure you were, putting your hand in a body with a bomb in it," she said looking at Meredith. "Cutting LVAD wires," she said looking at Izzie. "Being a very bossy patient when you were stabbed with that icicle," she said looking at Christina who started to smile.

"I wasn't your intern when that happened."

"Fine, covering for your ex when he had a hand tremor," she finished making them all look down sheepishly but then burst out laughing remembering all the other things they had done.

"There's a lot better stuff you could have used as evidence," said Meredith taking deep breaths to regularise her breathing. "And anyway the interns now are worse, at least we didn't perform a secret appendectomy on someone while they were _awake_," she said looking directly at Lexie laughing again to show she was kidding. Arizona hadn't been there when all this had happened so she was shocked when she heard.

"You did what?" she asked shocked. Callie joined in the laughing and patted her on the back.

"Oh I'll tell you the whole story later. It's better that you don't really know the interns at Seattle Grace, they're kind of... wild," she said making them all laugh once again.

"So are you still a resident?" Chloe asked Bailey she wasn't really sure how the hospital statuses worked and hoped that no one would laugh for asking the question.

"Well... I was going to be a general surgeon but I dunno..." She really wanted to go for the paediatrics offer but she didn't know how she would handle it with Tuck now that her and Tucker were getting a divorce.

"Go for it Bailey," said Izzie.

"If it's what you want to do then do it, what's stopping you?" asked Christina.

"Tucker and I are getting a divorce so I don't think I can handle the job with a three year old on my own." Everyone was shocked at her announcement and they stayed silent for a few moments until Meredith spoke up.

"We'll help you with Tuck if it's something you want to do." Bailey smiled.

"Right presents," said Izzie starting a new conversation. An hour had passed already with all the talk about the hospital. Everyone gathered around Lexie and watched as she opened the presents one by one.

Another hour had gone by and she had already opened just over half of the presents. Molly had bought her various dummies, bibs and t-shirts all saying either 'I love mummy' or 'I love my aunties'. She'd had them personalised by a friend who owned a store with his brother doing these kinds of things. Christina had bought toys, brightly coloured and noisy. She'd said it was so 'you don't fall over them – they're easy to see and hear'. But Lexie _and _everybody else knew it was just to annoy her. Rachel and Chloe had gone shopping together and had bought a few different little outfits in creams, light greens and yellows and also a range of home spa treatments. All were suitable for pregnancy to help her relax more. Callie and Arizona had bought her a stack of DVD's and TV Box sets for her to watch.

"They'll keep you busy when you go on maternity leave," they said laughing. "So you don't bother us at work moaning about the boredom." Meredith had also bought some outfits for the baby.

"There's more stuff to come, don't worry," she claimed. "Just wait until we go shopping again. We'll drag the men along to carry the heavy stuff though."

"You've already took me shopping though," said Lexie remembering their last shopping trip and all the stuff they had bought that day.

"You can't just go shopping once," said Izzie as she handed over the present she had bought her. Izzie was excited to see Lexie's reaction to the present. In her opinion it was the best gift yet. Lexie pulled out a three t-shirts in white, cream and green, two white bibs and a pair of socks. They all read the same thing and she laughed as she turned one of the t-shirts around to show the others. 'McSteamy Baby' was written across the front in bold writing. Everyone from the hospital laughed but Molly, Chloe and Rachel were all confused. Lexie saw their confusion and tried to explain the best that she could.

"_They_," she said pointing to Christina, Izzie and Meredith. "All call Mark McSteamy and it just sort of caught on. I have no idea why but... who knows," she said shrugging her shoulders.

"We named him the first day he came, after Derek punched him," said Izzie laughing.

"Yeah, Derek was already McDreamy by then. It's just a thing," said Meredith. "Seriously."

"You seem to say that a lot too," commented Rachel.

"Just a habit," laughed Christina. "Anyway last gift," she said. Bailey handed Lexie a flat square box. As Lexie held it she noted that it was kind of heavy. She removed the lid and tissue paper and was amazed by what she saw.

It was a collage of different photographs in a frame. In the middle was the first ever picture of the baby, they'd gotten it at their appointment a few months back. Surrounding it were various pictures of them all from different occasions. At the top the word family was written. There were pictures of herself, Mark, Meredith, Molly, Laura, Eric, Derek, her mum and her dad. There were also pictures of everyone from the hospital too from when they had gone out and even some when they were working. There were photos of Alex, Izzie, Christina, Owen, Callie, Arizona, Bailey, Richard, the other interns, Joe and even some of George.

Lexie had tears in her eyes as she looked at all the different photos. Meredith and Molly went to sit closer to her putting their arms around her shoulders. They were too both amazed by the picture.

"Thank you," she whispered to Bailey as she turned it around to show the others. She started to pass it around so they could all get a closer look, everyone amazed and complimenting Bailey.

For the rest of the evening they talked about a range of different topics while being forced by Izzie to eat the food. She didn't want to throw any away and had already said that she would bring any leftovers to the hospital in the morning.

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**I'm sorry that this chapter took me ages to write but last recently a friend of mine passed away and I didn't have any inspiration to write. More will come soon I promise but I go to back school in a few days. **

**Anyways I have a basic idea of where this story is going but anything could happen. **

**LittleMiss x**


	11. Chapter 11 Secret Phone Calls And Dinner

**Disclaimer: I sadly do not own Grey's Anatomy :(**

**Sorry I haven't updated in a while, went back to school few weeks ago :( **

**New season on Grey's starts soon – YAY! :) **

**This fic is coming to an end now, I've planned out what's gonna happen but now I just need to get it on paper. However saying that when I start writing it could go in a completely different direction, who knows?**

**I apologise now for ay mistakes i make in this chapter, i am writing this at 10pm so do expect some :P **

**Anyways on with the story....**

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Derek and Meredith were laid in bed, the first lie-in they'd shared together in a long time. Derek was gently stroking her hair while she laid across his chest. It was peaceful and calm now that Alex and Izzie had move into their own place.

"You know what?" he said sitting up against the pillows more.

"What?" she asked tiredly still laying across him chest, unwilling to move from the comfortable position she was in.

"We should do something?" She looked at him confused. "All of the family together, like dinner or something. I wasn't thinking anything extravagant though, just something nice and simple, like dinner."

"You want to invite _all _of your family her for dinner? They'll not fit around our little table!" she exclaimed sitting up and looking him in the eyes to see if he was being serious. He was.

"No, not everyone, my sister Elizabeth is coming over to see us, well Megan really but you know she'll end up coming to see us too. So it'd be just Elizabeth, her husband Ian and the kids and Megan and her kids. I really want you to meet her; she'll love you I promise."

"Okay then but add Mark and Lexie to the guest list too, when?"

"Tomorrow okay with you?"

"Tomorrow? When does your sister fly in?" Derek looked over at the wall then back at her with his McDreamy smile.

"This morning... I was going to tell you I swear!" Meredith shook her head and rolled her eyes as she climbed out of bed heading towards the bathroom so that she could get ready for work.

"Tomorrows fine," she called over her shoulder. Derek laughed then he too got out of bed to get ready for work.

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Meredith had nearly finished with her rounds, only one more patient to see and that was with Derek so it wasn't that bad. She walked into the room followed by her interns who were rather too perky for the morning.

"Morning Dr. Shepherd," she said as she walked into the room. Derek smiled back at her as he picked up the patients chart and started writing in it.

"Who's presenting?" he asked looking up from the chart. One of the interns stepped forward and began talking.

"John Doe, aged 28 years old, found near the lake severely beaten probably a mugging..." Meredith looked at the intern and glared.

"We don't need to know how it happened we just need to know what happened." The intern nodded now slightly more frightened than before, she was a new intern and had not been around before all the chaos had started so she didn't know how strict the residents could be. Though now everything was back to normal and she would find out.

"Sorry, the patient had intracranial bleeding due to a hit to the head..." As the intern explained the patients' condition Meredith's phone vibrated in her pocket. She quickly looked at the caller ID which she didn't recognise. Just in case it was someone important she excused herself from the room to answer the call ignoring confused looks from Derek.

"Hello?" she asked into the phone. For a few minutes it was silent and she wondered if it was just a stupid prank. As she was about to put the phone down she heard someone down the other end. "Hello?" she asked again.

"_Meredith?"_ She could recognise that voice anywhere. She could tell the boy had grown up but she could just still tell.

"Jayden?" she asked. "Is that you?"

"_Yeah, please don't be mad. I just wanted to speak to you again, we haven't seen or even heard from you in seven years." _

"I know, I know and I'm sorry but..." she started. She couldn't believe she was actually talking to him again, she thought that it would never happen.

"_No, no it's okay, I wasn't asking why or anything I just wanted to talk. I found your number in the phone book,"_ he said both excitedly and nervously. _"Will you ever come and see us again?"_

"I don't know Jay, it's complicated," she said, tears started to form in her eyes.

"_Why do all adults say that? _It's complicated_. What's so complicated about a stupid fight, why can't you just make up with mum? It's not fair,"_ he said his voice starting to break. Meredith couldn't stand to hear the sadness in his voice but she knew that she couldn't just go to visit them out of the blue. She didn't know where they lived now even if she wanted to.

"I'm sorry, I really am it's just..."

"_Complicated? Yeah I know, that's what my mum says too." _he said. Neither of them knew what to say now. It had been too long for just a friendly chit chat.

"Jay, I'm really glad you've called but I need to get back to work, okay?"

"_Yeah okay, I'll call you back some other time then?" _he said.

"Yeah that'd be nice, I'll talk to you soon." They both said good bye then she hung up the phone. The tears slowly trickling down her face; she couldn't believe that she'd just been talking to the little boy that she thought she'd never see again. Now she just hoped that she get a chance to apologise to his mother again, the woman that she broke her promise to.

She walked back into the patients room that she'd just come from as they were ending.

"So Dr. Grey will tell you which of you will monitor the patient for today. Thank you," he said leaving the room and heading in the direction of the nurses room.

"Yes, Dr. Marshall you can monitor John Doe and see if Dr. Shepherd needs you for anything else, Dr. Collinson you're in Cardio, Dr. Coulston you're with Dr. Sloan in plastics and Dr. Lunt you're on scut." The four interns stood around looking at each other making Meredith sigh. "Get moving then, it would help!" she said sarcastically leaving the room herself.

*******************

Meredith was filling charts at the nurses' station when she felt two arms wrap around her waist. She looked up and smiled at Derek who smiled back at her planting a small kiss on her lips.

"Hey, I haven't seen you since this morning," he said unwrapping his arms and standing next her.

"I know, I've been busy," she said. In fact she been trying to avoid him, she knew that he'd ask questions about this morning and she didn't know if she wanted to answer them right now.

"You okay? I mean this morning you looked pretty upset once you came back in the room," he said to the back of her head. She wasn't looking at him instead she was trying to focus on the desk because he would be able to tell is she was lying.

"Yeah, I'm fine, it was nobody really. Just an old friend," she said trying to cover up, she was not totally lying but he still didn't believe a word of it.

"Okay then, I'll see you later yeah?" She nodded her head only turning around again when she heard him walk away. She hated not being able to tell him, she wanted to but she just didn't know how to tell him.

********************

It was the next day, Derek still hadn't figured out what was the matter with Meredith the morning before but she seemed happier now so he just left it. Currently they were both preparing dinner for later. Lasagne with a salad and garlic bread. Nice and simple just like they had agreed on. Meredith had gone to get changed while Derek finished making the salad and setting the table. Just as he came out of the living there was a knock on the door.

He went to answer the door and was greeted by Elizabeth, Ian and her three kids. He greeted them all with a hug as he led them inside.

"So, how have you been sis?"

"I've been good thanks, you've got yourself a wife now I hear." Derek nodded his head proudly as he walked into the living room.

"Yep, Meredith should be down in a minute. Make yourself comfortable," he said as he sat down on the sofa. Elizabeth sat down on the other end, Ian sat in the chair with Gemma on his knee while Jack was mesmerised by his DS, his sister Tegan looking over his shoulder. She soon got bored after a few seconds so decided to climb up onto Derek's knee.

"Hey Tegan, how've you been?" he asked. The two year old giggled.

"Fine, fine, fine."

*****

Meredith was upstairs getting ready when her mobile rung again. She answered it, quickly checking the caller ID. _Jayden. _She smiled to herself.

"Hello," she said down the phone.

"_Hi Meredith, I'm sorry I called so soon, I just wanted to tell you something that I thought you'd want to know." _

"What might that be?" she asked trying not to sound too patronising.

"_I just wanted to say that we've all missed you, we really have. I've told them all about you and shown them all the pictures." _Meredith was confused, who was _them_?

"Jay, who's them? Who are you talking about?" she asked.

"_My sisters." _Meredith was shocked; she'd had other children and not bothered to call to tell her. She kept quiet though she wanted him to tell her at his own pace and not get scared off if she asked too many questions. _"My mum had two other kids after you left. She had Demi who's now seven and Amie who's now four. They both love you already just from the stories," _he said making them both laugh. They talked for a bit longer about how he was doing at school and what he'd done for his birthday before they both said goodbye again and hung up.

*****

Derek was wondering what Meredith was doing upstairs as it certainly couldn't take her this long to get ready when she walked into the room holding her phone wearing skinny black jeans and a floaty blue top. Megan and her kids had arrived shortly after Elizabeth had. Megan was sat next to Elizabeth talking, Sarah was looking at what Jack was playing on, Lacey was sat on the floor plaiting her dolls hair and Becky was playing with Tegan. Now they were just waiting for Mark and Lexie.

"Hey honey, who was on the phone?"

"Just an old friend again," she said putting the phone back into her jeans pocket. Derek stood up and hugged her so that he could whisperer in her ear.

"You okay?" She nodded into his chest before breaking away so nothing looked too suspicious. "Well lets introduce you to Lizzie's clan shall we?" Meredith laughed. "This is my sister Lizzie." Lizzie stood up and hugged Meredith who was slightly relieved that she wasn't anything like Nancy had been.

"Hello, I've heard so much about you, can't wait to get to know you more." Derek shook his head laughing.

"Liz not now, anyways that's her lazy husband Ian, then Jack's over there on the DS, he's four, Tegan's over there playing with Becky, she's two and that's Gemma, she's only seven months old." Meredith said 'hi' to Ian before sitting down on the sofa.

"We're here, we're here," a voice bellowed from the hallway. A few seconds later Mark appeared in the doorway, Lexie following behind him.

"Hey Lexie," said Meredith pretending not to notice Mark. Lexie smiled coming over to sit next to Meredith.

"Hey, what about me?" he asked pouting. Meredith shook her head and laughed.

"Oh sorry didn't notice you there." Mark stuck his tongue out at her like a child would do. Derek came into the living room to tell everyone that dinner was ready. They all followed and sat down at the table, which somehow they'd all managed to fit around.

They all ate their food in silence for a few minutes before Mark broke it and started a conversation.

"So, what's happening at the hospital today then?" he asked.

"I wouldn't know, I've not been in. I went over to visit Izzie for the day, she gets bored very easily," she said laughing.

"Bored? You can say that again. When I came to pick you up she was planning a Christmas party, it's only just September for god's sake," said Derek shaking his head.

"Izzie's the one who came shopping with us right? And planned Lexie's baby shower?" asked Megan. Meredith and Lexie both nodded their heads.

"The very same, you get used to it eventually." Derek looked at Lizzie who looked confused.

"Izzie's part of 'Bailey's interns', her, Meredith and some others were all interns together. They got up to a lot of mischief," he said.

"Oh yes, I've heard what you used to get up to. I'm not a doctor but I'm sure some of the things you did weren't allowed. Liz would you say cutting an LVAD wire was legal?" she asked trying to get her sister more involved in the conversation. Ian was watching over the kids who were eating their food as well as playing with toys. He usually didn't get involved in the conversations anyway.

"Who cut an LVAD wire?" she asked confused.

"Izzie, in her defence she was trying to save him and it did work, he only died due to other complications."

"He died?" asked Lexie, Meredith had forgotten that Izzie wasn't there when most of their _mischief _had taken place.

"Yeah," she said sadly, it was good to remember all the funny parts but they dragged along all the sad memories as well, like Izzie laying on the bathroom floor, prom and the muffin baking. Derek squeezed her hand under the table as he changed the conversation to something happier.

"So how's everyone back at home?"

*******************

_**Meanwhile over in Denver, Colorado**_

Jayden was lying on his bed listening to his iPod while doing his Maths homework when his mum came into the room. He could tell he was going to get shouted at by the look on her face.

"Can I ask why you've nearly gone over your minutes on your phone?" she asked trying to keep calm but was having a very hard time at doing so.

"I've been ringing people," he said shrugging.

"You specifically told me that you wanted your minutes lowering and your texts increasing because you text more than talk, so why the change?" Jayden got up, sat on the edge of his bed and shrugged. "Well?"

"I dunno, I just have."

"That's not good enough, phone now," she said raising her hand so that he could place his pone in her hand. He reached over for it and reluctantly handed his phone over. Hopefully she wouldn't be too mad when she found out who he had been calling.

*****

Hilary waited until she got downstairs to look at her sons phone. She was anxious to see who he had been calling so much. _'It couldn't be too bad; probably just a friend or even a girlfriend_' she reasoned with herself.

She looked through his call logs and was taken aback by the name he'd made two long phone calls to. She had to look again to make sure she was seeing right. She was. It was right there, the name she'd never thought she'd see again.

_Auntie Meredith._

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**A bit of a cliff hanger I know, but that's just how it ended. **

**Sorry I didn't know any of the interns' names so I just made them up – don't shout at me please! **

**Thanks for reading, hopefully I'll be able to post the next chapter soon :) **

**Please review, **

**LittleMiss x**


	12. Chapter 12 Arguments

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Grey's Anatomy :( **

**Thanks to all those people who reviewed the last chapter. **

**I apologise now for any mistakes I make, there might be a few as I'm writing this while having a very random conversation on MSN :)**

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_She looked through his call logs and was taken aback by the name he'd made two long phone calls to. She had to look again to make sure she was seeing right. She was. It was right there, the name she'd never thought she'd see again. _

_Auntie Meredith._

She knew that it would eventually happen but she didn't expect it nevertheless. At first she didn't know what to do, she was still getting over the fact that Jayden was calling his auntie, the woman she'd thought that she'd never hear from again. Well _she _hadn't heard from her, he son had. Hilary began to wonder who had made the first call, how either of them found each other. Too many thoughts were running through her head, she didn't know what to do next. Confront her son about it? Call the number, see how Meredith reacted when it was her on the other end and not Jayden. Had she spoken to the girls? Did she even know that she'd got two daughters now as well as her son? She heard someone coming down the stairs so she quickly scribbled the number down on a scrap piece of paper and placed it safely in her pocket. 'Later' she thought to herself. 'I'll call her later.'

*******************

The previous night had gone well and now Meredith was walking through the corridors of the hospital happy at the fact she got along with one more of Derek's sisters. For the rest of the evening they had talked about their work at the hospital, Mer's friends, the relationship between Mer and Lexie, Derek's other sisters and babies. It had been late by the time everybody left so Derek and Meredith had both gone straight to bed as they had work in the morning.

Currently she was trying to find Callie as her patient from the pit had a broken leg which she needed her to look at. She found her by the nurses' station talking to Arizona.

"Dr. Torres," she said walking up to the two of them. They both smiled at her and Arizona said bye before walking down the corridor. "I have a patient in the pit with a broken leg and I need you to have a look at it please."

"Sure, I'll meet you down there in five minutes I just need to check up on a patient," she said retrieving a chart that one of the nurses was handing to her.

"Okay," she replied before walking back down to the pit.

********************

Her two eldest children were both at school and her youngest was upstairs taking a nap. Hilary thought now was the best time to ring the number with was supposedly Meredith's, according to Jayden's phone. She sat down on one end of the sofa and dialled the number; half of her wanted her to pick up the phone but then the other half was nervous to what she would say.

She had to wait what seemed like forever before someone picked up on the other end.

"_Hello?" _

********************

Meredith was on her way to the pit when her phone once again vibrated inside the pocket of her lab coat. She looked at the caller ID and slipped into an empty on-call room before answering the phone. Luckily she was quick enough to answer it before they hung up on the other end.

"Hello?" There was silence on the end for a few seconds and Meredith was about to just hang up the phone. However Jayden was not like this in the other two calls so she thought something was up.

"_Meredith?" _She was not expecting that voice. On the other end of the call was her sister. The sister she thought she'd never hear from again. She didn't know what to say to her, they'd not spoken in years.

"How are you?" she said anxiously, not knowing what her response would be or why she'd even called in the first place.

"_I'm good thank you," _she replied coldly. Meredith suddenly felt uneasy, the two sisters used to be so close but now everything had changed. _"I was just wondering why you keep calling my son." _Meredith felt the anger rise in her but carefully kept it from spilling over and exploding.

"He called_ me_ actually, so I don't know why you're going around blaming me. Have you even talked to Jayden about it? Or have you just jumped to conclusions like last time?" she said, the control over her anger started to slip but she so desperately didn't want this to go into another one of their arguments. That could be disastrous. She heard her sigh on the other end of the phone.

"_If you're just going to turn this into an argument like last time then I'm going to hang up now," _she said making Meredith laugh down the phone.

"You're the one who called me. Anyways it wasn't even me who started the last fight; that was you." Meredith regretted what she said the minute she said it, she knew it would cause another argument and she didn't really want to bring up the last one. She'd only just got over that a couple of years back.

"_Maybe that's the case, but at least I didn't run afterwards back to the mother you claimed you hated. You left me behind to look after two children all on my own with no job and no chance of getting one either," _she said both sadness of the recollection and anger. Meredith was also feeling the same way.

"So is that what this is about? I got to spend my childhood with mom and you didn't? Well let me tell you this, sis, I would've traded with you any day."

"_What you would've wanted to spend your entire childhood with a strict aunt not ever knowing your mother? And anyway this is not what this is about?" _

"What is it about then?" Both woman had given up trying to control their anger and were yelling down the phone at each other both forgetting where they were and that others would be able to hear them.

"_You left me; alone with two kids over a stupid argument which I bet neither of us can remember." _

"Two kids? You were pregnant?" she asked shocked for two reasons; one because her sister had not told her that she was pregnant again and two because she was training to be a surgeon at the time and not noticed it herself. She also felt ashamed because she felt like the one who had it bad when in fact it was Hilary. In the back of her mind she badly wanted to apologise but was just too stubborn to do so.

"_Yeah and don't think you can apologise now and give me some sob story about something which I couldn't really care less about. I now have three gorgeous children no thanks to you." _Both women had calmed down considerably but there was still the anger in their voices which kept the argument going.

"I wasn't going to..." she started but before she could continue she heard sobbing from the other end.

"_Good bye,"_ Hilary sobbed as she hung up the phone. Meredith hadn't noticed before but there were tears streaming down her face.

"I'm sorry," she whispered into the phone, if only she could have plucked up the courage to do it while her sister was still listening. She sat against the floor crying to herself for a while. '_It was all his fault, why couldn't he have just stayed with mom. Then we'd have all been able to stay together, a big normal happy (most of the time) family_.' she thought to herself. But they didn't get that, it was far from normal. It was him who was to blame and it was him who she was going to take all her anger out on.

********************

Hilary lay curled up in a ball bawling on the sofa. She had really wanted to make up with her sister but they had just made it worse. None of them would apologise so easily, they were both too stubborn. She pulled herself together when she heard her youngest daughter, Amie, crying upstairs. Naptime was over. Now she had to pull herself together and go back to be the best mom she could for her kids.

********************

"Dr. Torres have you seen Dr. Grey anywhere?" asked Derek walking into the pit. She was supposed have met him for dinner fifteen minutes ago.

"Nope sorry, she was supposed to meet me here twenty minutes ago for a consult but never showed up. I had to find the patient and do everything myself, it was her patient in the first place. She asked for the consult," said Callie finishing putting a pot onto the patients leg.

"Oh okay," said Derek. This wasn't like Meredith, well not anymore. Something was wrong, he just had to find out what and that was easier said than done.

********************

Meredith ran all the way to his office, not caring who stared at her. A few times she heard people calling her name but she didn't stop. She needed to get to his office, fast so that she could tell him what he had caused. He was the reason.

As she got to the office she noticed it was empty which was a good thing because she wouldn't embarrass herself barging into some important meeting or something. Richard looked up in shock as he saw who had come rushing through his door.

"Meredith?" he said surprised but in a happy tone. She looked a totally mess; the thin layer of mascara which she's applied this morning was no longer on her eyelashes, it was now running down her cheeks mixing with the tears that continued to poor. Her face was red from all the running she'd just done. "Meredith, are you okay?" he asked. She shook her head while she got her breath back.

"_You,_you don't get to ask _me _if I'm okay," she yelled startling Richard. He didn't know how to respond so her just kept quiet and let her talk. He didn't go over to her to try and calm her down either as he didn't know why she was so upset and how she'd react. "It was all your fault, you left her; it was you!" she yelled. "Maybe if you'd have stayed with mum like we all know you wanted to then maybe this wouldn't have happened." Richard didn't know what to do, he didn't have a clue what she was on about but she needed consoling somehow. "She needed me and I didn't help, I just left!" she sobbed still yelling. She hadn't noticed Derek run through the door after her. He had heard it most of what she'd said. He'd run after her when she ran past the nurses' station. "My sisters life was ruined and its all your fault!" she cried. Derek wrapped his arms around her shoulders and she buried her head into his chest. Both men were shock at what they'd heard. Meredith had a sister.

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**So thanks for reading, can't believe I'm updating so fast. Want to say thanks to my two friends who made me continue to update while having a weird and random conversation on MSN – yes you know who you are! :P **

**Reviewing always makes me update faster :) **

**LittleMiss x**


	13. Chapter 13 Sister

**Disclaimer: I don't own Grey's Anatomy or any of its characters. **

**Thanks to everyone who's reviewed my last chapter! **

**Sorry I haven't updated this fic in a while, been busy with other things. It's only short, I know but I haven't really had the time. I didnt have time to read through it and check for any mistakes so i apologise now if there are any. Anyways on with the story...**

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_Meredith had a sister. _

"Sshh... its okay," soothed Derek rubbing Meredith's back as she sobbed. She still had her head in his chest and had not yet spoken since her outburst. Derek sat her down on the sofa in Richard's office and knelt in front of her. Richard stood behind them to the left.

"No it's not," she sobbed shaking her head. "It's too late now, she'll never forgive me." Derek sat on the sofa next to her, Richard still stood off to the left not knowing where he stood in all of this.

"Why, don't you tell me what's going on? Then maybe I could help?" he suggested hoping that she would calm down and tell him what was wrong. She waited for a moment then slowly nodded her head. Before starting she calmed herself down and wiped the tears from her eyes.

"It was a month after we moved to Boston," she started looking at Derek who nodded at her to continue. "Mum found out she was pregnant..."

"Who was the father?" asked Richard cutting her off. Derek looked at him telling him that it was a bad time while Meredith glared at him.

"Who's do you think it was?" she snapped. Derek put his hand on her shoulder to relax her, to prevent her from yelling at him. She turned back to Derek, it was him she was telling not the man who was standing behind her, the man who had ruined her sister's life. She hadn't got to know her sister and it was his fault. "Mum kept the baby at first and it was great at first. But then she couldn't cope; she took time off work, she started to lock herself away, she just left us. When Hil was six months old mum called her sister, Aunt Anne, to take Hilary and look after her. I don't know why she didn't send me as well, she should've done." Derek wiped away the tears she didn't even know were there.

"She loved you," he said simply. Meredith looked at him confused. "That's why she didn't send you to live with your aunt, she loved you." Meredith considered it for a moment. She would have loved it if that was true but she didn't think it was possible. Her mother had done too many things to convince her otherwise. She just shrugged her shoulders.

"Maybe," she said quietly. "I forgot all about having a sister while I was growing up. I remembered a baby but I couldn't remember who she was. I found a photo of me with her and that's when I remembered. I was thirteen. I wrote to her, telling her who I was and she wrote back," she said, even today she was still shocked that she'd gotten a reply from the letter she'd sent her sister. "We kept in touch, writing to each other and chatting on the phone, things like that. Then when I was fifteen, Hil was ten; she came to live with us for a year. Mum was fine with it; we were going back to Seattle. I don't know exactly why she let her stay with us all I know is that she did," she said looking at Richard. Suddenly he realised who he'd seen that time when he saw Meredith at her party. He'd been looking at his daughter and he'd not been able to tell who it was at the time. Inside his head he was kicking himself for being so stupid.

"That was my daughter," he whispered. "After the party?" He wanted to confirm it before he got carried away with his emotions. She slowly nodded his head. She was still mad at him but it wasn't entirely his fault. Her mum could have done something about it a long time ago – she could have told him. But then again so could she.

"Yeah," she whispered. "That was your daughter." Richard slowly nodded his head, digesting all of the information he'd just heard. He had a daughter. Hopefully Adele would understand. Meredith could see the hurt in his eyes; he had been kept from knowing his daughter. He'd missed out on twenty seven years of her life. She wanted to say something that could stop him hurting just a little bit; he had been there for her. She couldn't deny that. "I told her all about you, I showed her pictures. I wanted her to know you. You would've made a great father," she said standing up. Richard had tears in his eyes. She walked over to him and embraced him in a hug. He wrapped his arms around her as she buried her head in his chest. Derek was still sat in the sofa watching them both. Smiling.

**********

They had carried on talking about Hilary. Meredith had told them both stories about her and also about Jayden.

"So what's she doing now?" asked Richard. He'd asked the question that Meredith hadn't wanted to answer just yet. She shrugged her shoulders trying to keep the tears back.

"When Jayden was four we had a fight. It was about nothing really, just some stupid argument that went too far. I left to go with Sadie, a break from college and we didn't talk again since then. She did try to call a couple of times but I never answered, I don't know why now." She put her head in her hands.

"How come all of this has come up now then?" asked Derek, still slightly confused.

"Jayden rang me a few days ago trying to get me and Hilary to talk again. We did, she called me earlier and we had another argument."

"Maybe if you called her again, talk to her and explain things. Maybe that would help?" suggested Derek. Meredith shook her head but after thinking it through she changed her mind.

"Maybe."

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**Okay so thanks for reading this chapter. Sorry again for the shortness of it, hadn't really had a lot of time. I'll hopefully post another chapter soon, review please :) **

**LittleMiss x **


	14. Chapter 14 Family Party Part 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own Grey's Anatomy or any of its characters :( **

**Thanks to everyone who read my last chapters and to those that reviewed sorry if I didn't reply. Not updated in a while 'cause I've been ill and had loads of school work to do. **

**My apologies for any mistakes you find... **

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It had been a week since Derek had found out that Meredith had a sister and Richard had found out he had a daughter. Meredith had told Richard all that she knew so that he could contact her but she refused to talk to Hilary herself as she was adamant that she would hate her.

Derek had suggested to Meredith that they have a family party and today was the day. They had invited all of their family and friends who were set to arrive shortly. Everything was all set out; the food was ready, they were dressed, they'd set up the seats in the garden and had gotten their pool ready. Today it was sunny so they had decided to hold the party outside in the sun. The children could play in the pool while the adults sat around and talked.

Currently Meredith and Derek were sat on the sofa waiting for the doorbell to ring in an awkward silence. They were both lost in their own thoughts. Derek sat wondering if Meredith was really all right. She told him over and over again that she was but there was something that was preventing him to believe her, it wasn't that he didn't trust her it was just something. The doorbell rang bringing them out of the silence and Derek went to answer it leaving Meredith sat on the sofa staring into space.

As he opened the door Meredith came to join him, smiling. That was a good sign. On the other side of the door stood Carolyn, Megan, Sarah, Lacey and Becky; well she was in a pram but she was still there. Derek opened the door wider so they could all get through then they all greeted each other.

"Hope you've got your swimsuits kids because the pools been freshly cleaned just to be played in," said Derek.

"Ooh, good job I've got my bikini on under this," said Izzie laughing walking up to the door holding hands with Alex.

"So have I Iz, good job we're prepared," said Alex as Meredith greeted her friends. They all looked at him funny then laughed as he realised what he'd just said.

They all walked into the back garden but not before Derek put up a sign on the door telling people to just go round to the back garden. The six adults all sat down on chairs while Lacey and Sarah played with the toys that they'd brought with them. Becky was asleep in her pram.

"So you finally settled in?" Derek asked his youngest sister.

"Yep, everything is unpacked, the kids started their new school on Monday and I seem to know my way around. Well I know my way to the places I need to go." They sat talking for a few minutes until they heard the gate swing open. At first they saw nothing and just thought it was the wind but then Alex felt something slam against his side. He looked down and saw Tuck smiling up at him.

"Tuck, you know that you shouldn't run off like that," shouted Bailey coming through the gate followed by Christina, Owen, Callie and Arizona all laughing. She turned round to face them and they tried to stop laughing but failed. "Don't you laugh at me; this could be you one day." She started to laugh as well when she saw the funny side.

"Looks like you could do with a beer," said Derek coming out of the house carrying a large box of beer with him. She nodded her head as he handed one to her. Then he offered them to everyone else.

Twenty minutes later Eric, Molly, Laura, Richard and Adele had all joined them. People had been introduced and they were now in a conversation about Eric's return home and house renovations.

"So what are you planning to do with your year at home?" Meredith asked Eric.

"Molly has some very... _big _ideas for the house," he said but soon regretted it as he was hit on the arm by Molly. "Ow," he whined.

"So you can be shot at in the army but you get hit by a woman and that's it?" said Derek laughing.

"She hurts," he said acting wounded. All the women rolled their eyes and laughed.

"Men," they said simultaneously.

"So, what are these_ big _ideas?" asked Izzie.

"Well, I was thinking about redoing the kitchen and then the bathroom, then building an extension behind the house to make Laura's room and the guest room a bit bigger," she said without even taking a breath.

"Wow, those are big plans," said Owen taking a drink of his beer. "I feel sorry for you mate," he said patting Eric on the shoulder.

"And you expect all this to be done in a year?"

"Well, if it's done at the same time then yeah, it could be achieved."

"So you're going to live with a two year old and loads of construction?" asked Meredith.

"No, I'm coming to live with either you or Lexie," she said making them all laugh. Meredith nodded her head while taking a drink of Derek's beer.

"Anyone there?" someone shouted from the other side of the gate.

"Come on through," Derek shouted back immediately recognising his sisters voice. The gate swung open and seventeen people swarmed through.

"McFamilied," Izzie whispered so that only Meredith and the others could hear her. Meredith glared back causing her to laugh even harder. Derek walked back over to the chairs followed by the mass of people and started the introductions.

"Well, this is Kathleen she's my second eldest sister, this is her husband Tom and these are her kids James who's ten, Danielle who's seven, Harry who's four and Liam who's one... two even," he said quickly correcting himself. "This is Elizabeth or Liz whichever you want, her husband Ian and her kids; Jack who's four, Tegan who's two and Emma who's four months if I remember right," he said checking it with his sister who nodded her head. "Then this is Nancy who you've met before, this is her husband Brian and their kids; Leanne who's thirteen, Faye who's eleven, Daniel who's eight and Georgia who's five," he said. "And then this is Meredith," he said sitting down next to her. "And then there's our friends from the hospital; Alex, Izzie, Christina, Owen, Bailey, Arizona, Callie, Richard and Adele."

"And my sister Molly and her husband Eric," Meredith added in quickly. After everybody had greeted each other the women sat around in the chairs, the men went inside to watch the game and the kids either played with various toys or went in the pool.

"Oh yeah, only ask how they all know each other or anything about the hospital in fact make sure you have a really long time," said Derek before walking off into the house.

"Lexie's just text me and she says her and Mark are on their way; their hospital appointment ran over," said Molly putting her phone back into her pocket. Meredith nodded and there was an awkward silence for a few seconds.

"So, have any of you got kids?" asked Kathleen starting a conversation and breaking the silence.

"I've got a two year old daughter, Laura, she's gone inside with her dad," said Molly.

"And I've got a three year old son, Tuck who's somewhere around here," said Bailey. "He's probably terrorising the men, asking them to join in."

After several minutes of talking about their children, Mark and Lexie walked through the back gate.

"Lads are inside Mark," shouted Christina. Mark nodded and went inside the house to find the others while Lexie came and sat down with the women.

"How's everything looking?" asked Callie once she'd sat down between Meredith and Molly.

"Everything's going great, we've still not caved though so sorry to everyone who bet that we'd find out before today," she said. "It's still an it."

"Or a shim," said Izzie. One lunch in the cafeteria Meredith, Izzie, Christina and Lexie spent it coming up with names what they could call the baby for now without saying; he, she or it. 'Shim' had been the best so far.

"You bet on how long it would take to find out the sex of the baby?" asked Liz. "What a nice bunch of friends."

"Oh, it wasn't just us, we didn't even start it. The nurses started it and the whole hospital can bet. If you win you can get a fair amount of money, that's what we love about it," said Christina.

"Well maybe Izzie helped them with all of her free time that she's got," said Meredith.

"We've got several bets running at the minute but the only other main one we've got on is how long those two doctors from radiology will last," said Izzie. "I'm betting another two weeks at the most."

"Sounds like a fun place to work," said Nancy. "Way better than any of the hospitals I've worked at."

"We have some good times but then again we've had some bad times too."

********************

"So what do you think the women are talking about?" asked Tom, Kathleen's husband. The eight men were sat in front of the TV watching the recent game that was on while drinking beers.

"The hospital," said Mark, Owen and Derek simultaneously.

"It's all that they can talk about," said Derek.

"They have spent quite a lot of time there lately though, what with everything going on, they want to work just to keep their mind off of_ things_," said Owen. Mark and Derek nodded in agreement.

"What things?" asked Brian, they were just as bad as the women now. No one was paying attention to the TV, instead they were gossiping between them.

"One of their friends died recently; he got hit by a bus, nothing we could've done to save him. His heart gave out during surgery," said Mark.

"And Izzie, whose outside, is finally in remission from stage four metastatic melanoma but the amount of surgeries and chemo she's had...," Derek said shrugging. They stayed silent for a few seconds but then changed the conversation to a happier topic.

"So I hear you're going to be a dad then Mark," said Ian. "Liz, Nancy and Kathleen found out from your mum and trust me they were not impressed. They thought you should have called them personally."

"I'm surprised you made it in here alive."

"I got in before anyone could say anything," he said. "I'm just dreading going back out again now." They all laughed.

"Did you find out the sex yet?" asked Derek.

"Nope, we're still waiting until it's born," he said proudly.

"Damn, I've just lost $200 then," he said.

***************************************

**Thanks for reading this chapter. Already writing the next chapter so I should be posting that one soon! **

**Please review as it makes me feel special and updates will come quicker :) **

**LittleMiss x**


	15. Chapter 15 Family Party Part 2

**Disclaimer: I still don't own Grey's Anatomy :( **

**Thanks to everyone who read my last chapter! **

**Sorry I've not updated in a really long time... had loads of school work and I kept putting it off. **

**I apologise now for any mistakes I've made in this... anyways on with the story... **

* * *

"So what happy times have you had?" asked Nancy.

"What do you mean?" asked Meredith, understanding exactly what she meant but she wanted to avoid the subject it always lead to either of two things. George or cancer and neither were topics they really wanted to talk about today.

"You said that you've had some bad times but you've also had good times, like what?"

"Yeah and saving really cute or fit patients doesn't count," Kathleen added."Every hospital has those." Meredith was about to change the conversation completely when Bailey interrupted.

"But does you hospital have crazy manic interns every single year running?"

"Hey! We were _not _manic interns!" said Izzie. "We were.... _enthusiastic._"

"What about the crazy?" asked Liz.

"We won't deny that, we were a little crazy. But Bailey can't deny that were the best interns... even with all of the drama." Everyone was laughing while they talked of some of the memories from the time back when they were interns. As they were talking about it Christina, Izzie and Meredith all felt as though it was yesterday. Something was twigging at each of their hearts however... George wasn't going to be here to remember any of it with them. Meredith was pulled out of her memories by her phone ringing from inside her jeans pockets. She took it out and answered it.

"Hello?" she asked down the phone.

"_Meredith, it's me Hilary." _This was one call Meredith thought that she'd never get again. Not after the argument they'd had the previous week.

"Hi," she said again not knowing what to say. What do you say to the person who'd you'd left with a young child and told you never wanted to speak to them again, twice? "It's good to hear from you, how's everyone?" She hoped it was the right thing to say, she didn't want another argument. Not today. She stood up and walked over to the fence so that the others could continue talking. Christina and Izzie both watched her leave, something was obviously up but they'd wait for her to come to them first. For now they'd keep talking and hope nobody would ask questions.

"_Everybody's good. Look I wanted to apologise for what I said to you over the phone the other week. I forgive you; the fight was just a stupid way of getting at you. It was both of us not just you. I could've picked up the phone just like you could have; it was a stupid argument that got way out of hand." _

"You did try to call though," said Meredith nearly in tears.

"_What?" _

"You tried to call me for nine months after we had the fight but I was just too chicken to pick it up."

"_Oh yeah, so it was you... hmmm. This makes things interesting," _Hilary said making Meredith laugh through the few tears that had started to run down her face.

"Really... Well 'if you're just going to turn this into an argument like last time then I'm going to hang up now'."

"_Oh please don't bring that up again, I was really pissed and upset that my son has rung you in secret and... I was mad." _

"It was a rather good line though. What do you say friends again?" Meredith asked sheepishly.

"_More like sisters I think. Anyways I wanted to ask you something." _

"Anything."

"_So I've just pulled up outside this rather big and nice looking house, it seems familiar but I just can't place it. What do you think, should I just go up and knock on the front door. Oh, wait there's a sign. Maybe I should just go around back."_

"What? You're _here_?"

"_That would depend totally on were here is? Now I remember why the house I familiar, I lived here for a little while with the best big sister a sister could ask for." _Before Meredith could say anything else the phone line went dead and she could hear the gate swing open.

"Hey there big sis!" Meredith turned around and say her little sister holding a young child with two others stood by her feet. Hilary put the girl she was holding down and went running towards the sister she hadn't seen in years. Meredith wore the biggest smile she had since the fight as she hugged her sister.

"OMG, I've missed you so much," Meredith said unwillingly separating from her sister. All the men had come outside to see what all the commotion was about. Meredith bent down so that she was eye level with the boy. "Don't say you've forgotten me." A huge grin spread across the little boys face as he realised who was talking to him. He wrapped his arms around her neck. "Missed you too JJ." Once she'd let go of Jayden she walked over to Derek who looked as confused as everyone else in the garden. However she decided against it and walked past him and over to Richard.

"There's someone I'd like you to meet," she said then walked back over to Hilary with Richard following. "She's not so young and cute now but this is Hilary my sister and your daughter." Richard and Hilary both had tears in their eyes as they hugged each other for the first time. "Hey, hey, hey, enough with the tears now, how about some introductions?"

"That might help," said Christina standing up and walking closer to Meredith.

"Well I've already introduced you and Jayden maybe you could help out with the gorgeous two girls," Meredith said to Hilary who nodded.

"Well this is Demi Leanne, she's seven," she said introducing her to everyone but talking specifically to Meredith. Right now nobody else mattered.

"You were pregnant with her when we... when I... when I left." Hilary nodded then continued she didn't want to be crying when she introduced her next daughter.

"And this is Amie, she's three. When I looked at her for the first time in the hospital I instantly forgave you, I don't know why but I did so I named her Amie Meredith. I really hope you don't mind."

"Of course I don't," Meredith said with tears in her eyes. To prove she didn't mind she went over and hugged her sister once again.

"So what do normal fella's do when all the soppy stuff's happening?" Jayden asked Mark breaking the two sisters apart and causing everyone to laugh.

"Don't you think you're a bit young to not care about the sappy stuff?"

"Im eleven and anyway I live in a house with three girls... too much sappiness."

"I know where you're coming from man, I've got four sisters and they never leave me alone," said Derek. "Why don't you come and watch the rest of the game with us men?" Jayden nodded his head and they were about to go back in when Hilary stopped them.

"So which on e of you has sent my super hard sister weak at the knees?" asked Hilary eyeing them all up.

"That would be me," said Derek turning back around. "And trust me it wasn't that easy but she's a girl underneath."

"Yep that's her." The men started walking inside again while the women gathered around on the chairs. Both groups ready to start gossiping again.

"So spill the beans, why didn't you tell me you had a sister?" asked Christina as soon as they'd sat down.

"I... um... I dunno. I just didn't, there was never a good time to tell you."

"What about when we first met, the first day?" asked Izzie.

"'Cause she was mad at me and wanted to pretend that I didn't exist," Hilary answered for her and it was partially right so Meredith shrugged her shoulders and smiled.

"Anyway introductions," Meredith began changing the subject. "This is Cristina, Izzie, Bailey, Callie, Arizona, Lexie, Molly, Nancy, Liz, Kathleen, Megan, Adele and Carolyn."

"Wow you know a lot of people, you're not like your old 'let nobody in' self."

"I work at a hospital; there are a lot of people there and then Derek's got a really big family." They continued talking amongst each other and Meredith explained to Hilary, Lexie and Molly that they were not related – different sides of her big family.

* * *

"So then little man, what's the deal between your mum and your aunt Meredith?" asked Mark once they were settled in the living room. Jayden rolled his eyes and sighed before he began to talk.

"Well, ages ago they had this massive fight over nothing really. Auntie Meredith moved away and they didn't speak to each other again until now and that's only because I've been ringing her. Mum found out and they had another argument but then they made up finally."

"Wow, another complicated story in Seattle," said Owen taking a sip of his beer. They all laughed and began to watch the second half of the game.

* * *

Three hours later all the men were still in the living room even though the game had finished now they were watching the after-match commentaries and interviews. Sometime while the game was on they had been joined by James, Tucker, Daniel, Harry and Jack.

Suddenly they heard giggling coming from the kitchen followed people running up the stairs. They all tried to see what was happening without standing up but failed so they decided to stay where they were and see what happened.

* * *

"I fancy a swim in the pool," said Izzie out of the blue. Meredith smiled she knew exactly what she was thinking.

"I hope everyone's brought their bikinis," Christina said laughing, she too knew what was going on.

"Why don't we all go up and get changed." They all agreed. Derek's sisters, Adele, Bailey and Carolyn started gathering up the children so they could get changed as well while Hilary, Meredith, Lexie, Molly, Christina and Izzie got things ready for what they were planning to do. They walked through the kitchen trying to be as silent as possible but instead they just started laughing so they charged up the stairs.

Thirty minutes later they were all ready, the men had relocated to the kitchen to get more beers. Everything was in place. Adele, Carolyn, Bailey and Nancy all went down stairs first talking and not paying much attention to the men. They sat outside in their places – far enough away. Then Callie, Arizona, Molly and Liz came down with some of the children; Laura, Tegan, Emma, Georgia and Lacey. Again they didn't take much notice of the men and vice versa. After that Kathleen, Lexie and Christina came down with Danielle and they too sat by the pool but at the far end so that they would be able to see everything. Then the two oldest children went down; Leanne and Faye – with them they brought down Becky and Amie. They sat down near the shallowest part of the pool so the kids could splash around. Demi, Lacey and Sarah then came down saying hi to the guys before going outside so that they would be brought out of their own conversations. Finally Meredith, Megan, Hilary and Izzie all came down stairs in their bikinis. They slowly walked through the kitchen to get the attention of the guys then ran out of the door.

As they had planned all of the men followed leaving the lads back in the living room. The four women had hid behind the corner of the house near to the garage. Richard and Owen went to sit with the rest of the women while Derek, Mark and Alex went to get more beers.

Meredith, Hilary, Megan and Izzie all jumped out water guns in their hands. The three men fought to get closer but retreated once they found out that some of the kids had also got water guns.

It was the perfect scene; a big water fight between men, women and children who all loved each other on a sunny day. Family. And to make it even better Meredith had finally made up with her sister after years.

Everybody has secrets but it's best to tell them then to keep them to yourself.

* * *

**So the fic has come to an end :( **

**I just want to say thanks to everyone who's kept with the story even when it sometimes took me months to update. Special thanks to all those who reviewed it... reviews make me feel special. **

**Let me know what you think of the ending please. **

**LittleMiss xx**


	16. Authors Note

**Not another chapter but an authors note :D**

Hey people,

I've been attacked by plot bunnies once again :(. I've got a few idea's which could be shaped into a sequel for this fic, Everybody Has Secrets.

I've re-read through Everybody Has Secrets to see if it could work (I got some inspiration Emma, it worked!!) and i think it will and i think it can with a few more ideas. Please review or PM me if you think i should make a sequel or if you have any ideas that could help!!

LittleMiss xx


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